Finding the Indian ruin

On Thursday, Bill Sullivan and I went looking to find the trail to the old Indian ruin nestled in a cave up one of the mountains. We had been there before but the trail isn't easy to find. I wanted to go with him one more time so I could find the trail without him. I think some of you have seen the pictures of the remnants of the small adobe home before. It is really something. Most people respect the ruin and leave things intact. Sometimes people find little shards or arrow heads and just leave them on the bricks for others to see.



Anyway the trail up was more strenuous than I remembered or maybe we went at a faster pace than before. You have to follow a marked trail until a certain point when you look for an animal path ("where the old schoolhouse used to be"?) that is not that obvious. It is not marked at all. Once you work your way through the smallest hint of a path, you cross a dry creek and then find a trail that leads straight up over lots of slick rock. You have to be careful of cactus too. I slipped on a rock and banged my hand against a prickly pear and got about a dozen spines in the back of my hand. Most came out easily but a few needed a good tug. When we got to the top, it was well worth it. I love the picture, above, of the overhang we have to walk through. That's Bill walking along. You can see the dark spot in the distance where the cave is. Getting from the overhang to the actual cave is an ordeal too as you have to climb over/under manzanilla trees and roots and go hand over hand up a couple of rock faces. It makes coming down a challenge too. What a treat when you are there. Looking out over the valley is breathtaking.
We got back to Bill's place to have a beer and watch the sun set over the Fin. Those are the real colors.