Cedar Mesa for Thanksgiving

Thursday – Sunday, November 27-30, 2014

For Thanksgiving this year, Diane and I decided to spend a nice relaxing weekend on Cedar Mesa and we really lucked out with nice weather all weekend. The high temperatures were in the upper 50’s during the day and low temperatures only dropped into the mid-30’s at night. We had camped in colder temperatures in the mountains during the summer! The campground at Natural Bridges National Monument made a perfect base-camp for us, which also happened to be free during the winter months and was a nice surprise. Diane had prepared a nice Thanksgiving dinner that we ate next to the campfire on Thursday night. The rest of the weekend we hiked in search of ruins and rock art. We ended up visiting many ruins that I had been to a long time ago and that Diane had never been to before, which allowed me to try and get some better photos of them. We explored a few new areas, too. Enjoy the photos from our weekend!

The White Man pictograph.

Hiking under Sipapu Bridge.

Many reverse handprints in a very large alcove.

Beautiful hiking in White Canyon.

This little pictograph of a sheep looks like it was created with fingerprints of paint.

These double-decker ruins were pretty cool. The roof/floor between the levels was even still intact.

Pink sky over Cedar Mesa.

Reflection in Road Canyon.

The two handprints at the top are some of the biggest I have ever seen. They were almost as big as my hands, which is unusual since most of the handprints I come across are much smaller.

We caught some nice warm sunset light on the next few ruins and petroglyphs.

Last of the light.

The Oven Ruin.

I like how this ruin was constructed with large sandstone slabs.

We visited the well-known Fallen Roof Ruins. It has been many years since I was at these ruins, so it was nice to get better photos.

Two dancer petroglyphs on the top of a large boulder.

I love the little pictographs painted inside the structure.

Hiking under Kachina Bridge.

This is definitely one of my favorite petroglyph panels in the area.

A lot of atlatls and a big sheep.

A small arch we hiked by that we are referring to as the Hidden Window, since it has no official name.

I’ll finish off with a sunset photo of the Bear Ears, prominent landmarks on Cedar Mesa and the surrounding area.

>> Cedar Mesa for Thanksgiving Photo Gallery