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Poncho House Ruin--Navajo Nation
On a very overcast day, my wife and I hiked to the largest Anasazi ruin in Utah, Poncho House. We were required to secure the services of a native guide, which we did. He was from the town of Halchita, Utah, just across the San Juan River south of Mexican Hat.
Poncho House sits in an alcove on Chinle Creek, about halfway between the San Juan River and the Arizona border. By Navajo Nation roads, it is hard to locate the exact road if you have never been there before.
The major graded roads on the Res were passable to any vehicle; however, the route that got us as close to Poncho House as possible did require 4x4. After dropping down into a side wash of Chinle Creek via a donkey trail, we entered the washbed and worked our way as close to the ruin as we could. We found recent mountain lion scat and foot prints (more on this later).
Poncho House consists of 3 separate sets of ruins, high off the floor of Chinle Creek. It has been established as nearly the size of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde, yet not nearly as preserved and reconstructed as Cliff Palace. In fact, Poncho House sits much as it is since its original Anglo discovery by W. H. Jackson of the US Geological Survey in 1875. An inscription of his is pecked into the back wall of the first set of ruins.
We spent about 2 hours exploring the ruin. The ground was peppered with pottery shards of all shapes and sizes. Almost every where you looked both in the ruin and upon the midden heap hiking up to the ruin was covered with shards. My wife found several that contacted a full half of the jar lip. Amazing! All were left in place.
The overall hike was approximately 3.5 miles on way. Elevation change was slight, consisting mainly of a few scrambles up and down wash bottoms, of say 15-20 feet. The climb up into each ruin set was approximately 100 feet from the canyon floor.
This is an amazing place. By Navajo law, a guide is required. We booked ours through http://www.trailhandlertours.com/ The guide service does not normally go here. It had to be a specially arranged tour. Pricy, by worth it at least once in my humble opinion.
From start to finish, trip was completed in 6 hours.
