McCloyd Canyon Loop - Bogley Meetup

[Brewhaha]

DenaliGuide (DG) and I got together today for a mini-Bogley meetup in the "true" Southern Utah - Cedar Mesa. DG has been exploring the Mesa for about a week and put out a call for anyone and everyone to meet him sometime and do some hiking. I decided to take him up on his invitation and we spent a great day hiking the McCloyd Canyon Loop. The tale follows:

DG wanted to meet at the Moonhouse main parking lot at 8 am this morning. I left Monticello at about 5:30 am and got to the parking lot at 7:30 (and, yes, Cirrus, I took my beater little truck ;-) There is a great little campsite real close to the parking lot. I pulled into an empty parking lot and was getting my gear together when DG comes strolling up the road ready to go. We hop in his truck and drive to the Moonhouse trailhead.

We make the hike to the Moonhouse which is a fairly easy hike requiring a little scrambling. It is claimed that the Moonhouse Complex contains 49 rooms - which is probably correct if you count all the rooms in the immediate and adjacent area. After looking around and spending alot of time complementing the BLM on their site managament wisdom and policies we start hiking down McCloyd canyon.

The hike took us within sight of many, many ruins. DG was like a machine in finding and pointing them out. I was amazed. If you ever really want to truly see the structures and art in a Cedar Mesa canyon you need to go with DG.

The route around the loop required some pretty ingeneous route finding in order to avoid several major impassable pouroffs. At one point we ended up having to do a 15 ft rappel. It was either rappel or climb down a sketchy "ladder" (Kelsey's term) made of old logs and underoos waistbands. The rap was the right choice. We went to the bottom of the canyon and ate some lunch in the shade of the Cottonwoods. During lunch DG regailed me with stories of his weeklong adventure on the Mesa and his guiding and flying expertise. I shared with him adventuresome tales of teaching college algebra.

At another point DG found some tricky and strategically placed Moki steps that saved us lots of time. He free climbed them like a native and then belayed me up. Most people have no idea they are there and have to use a nasty scree pile across the canyon. DG is a wizard with this kind of stuff.

Anyway, after making the loop and seing all of the ruins we exited via a southern tributary and made our way back to the vehicle. I headed home and DG headed off to another canyon - damn he's lucky.

I took the pictures and DG served as the eye-candy. We did take one picture of us (standing a little too close together) in order to prove to my wife that I was doing what I said I was doing.

I'll say it one more time - if you ever get a chance to have DG take you anywhere, do it and you won't be sorry. (FYI - you may be able to bribe him with Diet Coke and Tuna in a bag.)

Thanks DG for a great time.

P.S. Kelsey describes the whole route (except the Moki steps) but leaves quite a bit to the imagination and Tassoni tells you to turn around at the first pouroff, thus missing the fun of the underoos ladder and moki steps.

P.P.S. DG, it looks like Kelsey advocates staying high on the narrow ledge and going around that very sketchy ledge that we bypassed.

[KapitanSparrow]

Now that's a place I wanna see.

[DiscGo]

That is way cool! That latter was crazy!

[accadacca]

Awesome place to meet up.

[Win]

What a great hike! I loved that area last Fall and we may go back for a week in Oct. Thanks a lot for sharing this.

Win

[oldno7]

Very cool area, thanks

[sparker1]

Great, great TR and pix. I spent some time in that area last year but not this hike. What a mistake. Course, I would need a leader like DG to make it through.

[Cirrus2000]

Excellent stuff, guys!

I'll second the recommendation: if you ever get a chance to meet up with DenaliGuide, leap at it. Greatly experienced, and terrific company!

And Brew, much as I enjoyed - and appreciated - the ride in your "beater little truck", perhaps one day we can share a trail...

[jrconstance]

We did this hike yesterday, walking the whole loop. Surprised that you don't have pictures of the "skinny ledge" which certainly caused some nervousness among some of our group.

FYI, we all climbed down that "ladder" but we had someone up top belaying all of us. Did have to lower a dog down using a makeshift harness.

Two of us climbed up that rock pile that you avoided, and one climbed up over by the Moki steps, then two of us assisted the rest of the group (and the dog) up the Moki steps.

Just curious as to how you finally got out of the canyon. It took us a long time to find the exit route (climbing up a steep, rocky ravine on the south side of the canyon, and I'm wondering if there was another way that you had found.

J.R.

[JONBOYLEMON]

What a great trip. Where is this from Monticello, how far & in what dirrection???

[Mtnman1830]

Nice! We went to Mesa Verde this spring. It would be nice to have a bit mroe 'freedom' in the area.

[Brewhaha]

We did this hike yesterday, walking the whole loop. Surprised that you don't have pictures of the "skinny ledge" which certainly caused some nervousness among some of our group.

FYI, we all climbed down that "ladder" but we had someone up top belaying all of us. Did have to lower a dog down using a makeshift harness.

Two of us climbed up that rock pile that you avoided, and one climbed up over by the Moki steps, then two of us assisted the rest of the group (and the dog) up the Moki steps.

Just curious as to how you finally got out of the canyon. It took us a long time to find the exit route (climbing up a steep, rocky ravine on the south side of the canyon, and I'm wondering if there was another way that you had found.

J.R.

Glad you had success. It's a great loop with lots of neat ruins. We looked at that thin ledge (and I wish I had a picture) and then found a fairly simple way around it. The Moki steps make things alot easier provided you can ascend them. Also, we came out of the canyon the same way you did. There didn't seem to be another way. The other possible way leads to a pretty big pouroff.

JONBoy - This is in the Cedar Mesa area with is southwest of Monticello. The TH is about 90 minutes from downtown Monticello.

[denaliguide]

Just curious as to how you finally got out of the canyon. It took us a long time to find the exit route (climbing up a steep, rocky ravine on the south side of the canyon, and I'm wondering if there was another way that you had found. J.R.

probably would have been easier if i hadn't kicked over most of the cairns. eh?

[bbennett]

I haven't been there since I was a kid. Great TR and awesome photos. Thanks.

[Brewhaha]

I forgot about that.