Comb Ridge and the Borderlands of the Bears Ears

Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country IV | Saturday – Monday, January 17-19, 2026

While I was originally hoping to take Diane out to the Pahranagat Valley over this extended holiday weekend, we found ourselves needing to stay closer to home for the time being, but I still wanted to go somewhere where Diane would be able to join me. She has recently started Radiation Therapy and is still not allowed to do much hiking, but after a little bit of thought I figured we could return to Comb Ridge and the surrounding country to go on some shorter and easier hikes in the area. This would also give us the opportunity to return to the Bluff International Balloon Festival since we haven’t been back to the event since 2014, which was shortly after we first started dating and I believe it was also our very first weekend trip away together! These are some photos of what we saw this weekend.

Diane hiking ahead of me in Ladder Canyon. She was pretty happy to get outdoors again in the nice weather this weekend.

Spiral Cloud Man

We watched the first light of the day strike this nice petroglyph panel.

Exploring a colorful alcove that contained the following two small pictographs.

Red Hands

Little White Pictographs

Montezuma Creek Ruin

Line of Sheep at Sunrise

Looking down at the canyon floor, this scene caught my eye.

Horse On A Line

Buffalo & Circles

Diane walks across Butler Ruin Bridge.

Serenading the Spirits

Potsherds

This interesting petroglyph panel was composed off all dots.

Basketmaker Figure

I liked the ‘big mouths’ on these sheep.

Big Mouth Sheep Panel at Sunrise

A few of these long slabs of sandstone were covered with petroglyphs.

Walking through another colorful alcove.

Ladder Panel

It’s been over fifteen years since I last visited Tower House, but Diane had never been here before and it was a nice short hike for her.

Tower House Petroglyphs

Hard-to-see petroglyphs in the alcove next to Tower House.

We had the opportunity to revisit this interesting carving of a cradleboard shortly before sunset. The low light added shadows in the shallow crevices that helped make it more visible.

It was nice to revisit one of my favorite petroglyphs- The Rainmaker

The highlight of the weekend for us was being able to visit this pot together.

Chipped Rim Pot

Corrugated Pot

 

On Saturday evening we made our way over to the Bluff Community Center just after sunset to watch the Glow-In for a little while.

Here’s a short video clip of the balloons at the Glow-In.

Early on Sunday morning we made our way over to the Valley of the Gods to watch the balloons fly. We stopped below Setting Hen Butte at sunrise and waited for the caravan to arrive.

While we were waiting, Diane wanted to hike up to the top of the ridge between Setting Hen Butte and Rooster Butte to take in the views.

The dust was lighting up nicely behind my 4Runner at sunrise from all the traffic driving by.

There was also a nice distant view over to Monument Valley.

Soon the caravan from Bluff showed up and started kicking up even more dust along the road.

A few of the balloons stopped right below us to start setting up, so we stayed where we were and waited until they were in the air.

Taking Off

One of the balloons flew directly above us.

After hiking down off the ridge we finished the loop drive through the Valley of the Gods and stopped for a few photos of the balloons along the way.

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