Yesterday we set off on a new adventure to explore Fish Creek. Fish Creek is the drainage down from Cedar Mesa which is full of excellent ruins. A trip up Fish Creek reveals why the Anasazi loved the area. Fish Creek was an ideal place to live. The water runs all year and the valley has excellent areas for corn. It was nice to go into a new area.
On the way to Fish Creek, Lord Kadizzle, who now considers himself an amateur archaeologist, said to Her Eminence, "If there was a way over the Comb Ridge, the Indians would have found it". So on the way to Fish Creek we traveled the backside of the comb and looked for the crossover. As we approached an area that looked good The Commander noticed people standing at the top of the Comb Ridge. Low and behold it turned out to be people we met the day before. With some shouting we got them to go to channel 22 on their two way radio. We could see Moqui steps from the bottom with binoculars. Our friends on top confirmed that this was the crossover, and that the Processional Panel was nearby on the top.
The Processional Panel is one of the most elaborate petroglyph panels in the Bluff area. We had seen it before and wondered why such an exquisite panel would be in such a place. At that time, we had no idea the crossover was there. With the crossover nearby, it now made sense. It would have been like a huge billboard at an intersection on the interstate. Comb Ridge is an incredible natural barrier for East- West travel in Southern Utah. In the Bluff area, it drove the Mormons nuts because they could not get across it. On the West side, it is like God's version of the Great Wall of China. The Comb runs for about twenty miles in this area, and is a sheer cliff rising from the valley below. The Mormons finally got a road around the end near the San Juan River. According to historical accounts, the Mormon's oxen died from exhaustion in their tracks trying to go up the road.
Later in the day, back at our camper, some of our new friends stopped by. After telling them about our "discovery", they explained they had spent years looking for these places, and had found several more. They gave us the other locations. When The Commander saw the first one yesterday, she started barking and running toward it with a desire to climb to the top. It is almost straight up with a terrible amount of loose rock. I solved the problem by telling her we could do it later when we came back from Fish Creek. When we came back she started up while I sat in the truck. I got impatient and finally got her to come back.
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