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A Day In and Around the Tenmile Country

Sunday, December 11, 2022

I was originally planning to stay home this weekend, but after going on a short hike in Flume Creek Canyon on Saturday morning I was feeling the need to get out and explore some new territory, so I decided to head out into the Tenmile Country north of Moab for some Jeeping and hiking on Sunday. I left home early on Sunday morning and spent most of the daylight hours exploring backroads and canyons from Tenmile Point to Salt Wash. Although I didn’t find anything too exciting this weekend, it was nice to just get out to explore a couple new areas and revisited a some others with plenty of solitude.

On my way out into Tenmile Country I first stopped to search for Burrito Bridge. I have looked for this natural bridge before and come up empty handed, so I was happy to finally find it this time!

Burrito Bridge

After driving out toward the end of Tenmile Point I parked off the side of the road and started by first hike down the Dead Cow Trail, which follows a nice little canyon to Placer Bottom and the Green River near the beginning of Labyrinth Canyon.

Canyon Ridges

The lower end of this canyon was narrow with a little bit of flowing water.

Dead Cow Canyon

Narrow Canyon Glow

Once I was out onto Placer Bottom I headed downstream and hiked as far as I could to the beginning of the Trin-Alcove Bend.

Trin-Alcove Bend Beginnings

Then I revisited a small panel of petroglyphs including this bighorn sheep.

Sheep Petroglyph

The bighorn sheep petroglyph was flanked on both sides by these two spear-wielding hunters.

Atlatl Thrower

Crookneck Staff & Spear

After exploring Placer Bottom for a little while I hiked back up Dead Cow Canyon to my Jeep.

Pool View

Canyon Water

Shallow Alcove

Next, I drove down the Midpoint Access Route into Tenmile Canyon to do a little more exploring.

Tenmile Country Exploring

I hiked up the canyon a bit and climbed up to explore a number of large alcoves along the way.

Tenmile Alcoves

I only found some smoke-stained ceilings this time, but the scenery was lovely.

Alcove Exploring

Canyon Wandering

After a couple miles of hiking I headed back out of Tenmile Canyon.

Midway Access

My last stop of the day took me a bit further north towards Green River as I wanted to revisit a ‘bubbling spring’ or ‘geyser’ that I first visited over a decade ago. Thankfully my memory is still working and I found it pretty easily.

You know you are getting close to the bubbling spring when the colors on the ground start becoming a vibrant reddish-orange.

Ground Colors

Bubbling Spring Colors

The Bubbling Spring

Bubbling Spring

I assume this is a cold-water geyser, just like Crystal Geyser and Champagne Geyser which aren’t too far away from here, except this one only constantly bubbles instead of occasionally erupting. Here’s a short video clip of the bubbling.

After leaving the Bubbling Spring the sky had become completely overcast and there was no point in sticking around for sunset this evening, so I headed back home. It was a nice day exploring the Tenmile Country!

>> Tenmile Country Photo Gallery

2 Comments

  1. Dave
    Dave December 15, 2022

    Great pics! The spring really shows off its color from the acidic waters and microbes.

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