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TR: Hiking on Cedar Mesa (Lewis Lodge & 3 fingers Ruins)
Over the weekend Cristina, Lucy "The Wonder Dog" and I headed down to Cedar Mesa.
The trip started by hiking down Hammond Canyon to the Three Fingers Ruin. Hammond Canyon was amazing! The colors and scenery are great, and the ruin is exceptionally well preserved. While taking a break, Wonder Dog found joy in chasing, and occasionally catching water skeeters. By the end of the break, she looked like a drowned rat....
We got back to camp just before strong winds and a brief snow squall passed through. Spring in the desert.
Sunday our objective was Lewis Lodge. We got within about 2 miles of the trailhead before realizing the Forrester was simply not cut out for this harsh of 4 wheeling, so we parked and walked the road.
Lewis Lodge is a great ruin in a unique spot. The ruins are spread out over a narrow ledge several hundred feet off the canyon floor. To visit, you downclimb a low angle ramp from above, then walk the ledge around. It is one of the most exposed hikes I know of. In spots the ledge is not more than a few feet wide. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like to live there full time around such exposure. How many accidents must have happened?
Having been to most of the major ruins on Cedar Mesa, I would say Lewis Lodge is one of, if not the, most spectacular. What a place!
Driving out we found the wind had blown down some trees. Fortunately for us the Forrester was short enough to fit under the most troublesome of these...
All in all, a great spring weekend in the desert.
As an aside, those of you that hike in the desert with dogs, did you do anything special to teach them not to get into cacti? We had to use tweezers to remove several large clumps from Lucy's paws, tail, and even nose several times. Not being the brightest bulb in the pack, Lucy tried to remove the ball of cacti from her nose by licking it.... Ouch! Unfortunately she seems to have a high pain tolerance because she didn't stop getting into them, or even whimper when they got stuck on her.
