Tuesday

I opened the cattle gate on a desolated sand road just outside of Bluff, Utah and reset the odometer; our destination was 9.2 miles along a long road seldom traveled. Our goal was a bird’s eye view of Eagles Nest, an Anasazi ruin in an alcove three hundred feet above the valley floor. A ruin or dwelling in this case that was at the end of civilization as we know it in the 1300. As Jared Diamond quoted, the drought had finally taken its toll after years of prosperity and rain, the population had exceeded the food production and survival instincts had taken over. They build their last holdouts on the side of rock cliffs, far away from the enemy, or in their case maybe their neighbor.

Our route leads us up the 400 foot sandstone ridgeline that overlooked Eagles Nest, a log arduous climb up petrified dunes from 150 million years ago. The view was over the cliff edge that offered us a sight of the ruin I had been in several years ago with Strayer, we set up a rope and repelled into the exposed cliff dwelling hanging over 300 feet above the valley floor. A ruin virtually untouched due to its location by modern day man.

We set ourselves down with a view for lunch. The dog perched precariously on the ledge over looking it all.

Richard Boyer