Comb Ridge - Bluff, Utah - Geological formation, primitive camping



A rock formation in the desert and canyon area of southeastern Utah, Comb Ridge is an immense sandstone formation tilted at an angle of about 20 degrees. It is almost one hundred and twenty miles long, about one mile wide, and runs north and south. The first 65 miles are on the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation and to hike anywhere on the reservation you must obtain a permit from the Navajo Nation headquarters, in Window Rock, Arizona.

One online reviewer said, "We have visited only the northern end of Comb Ridge in Utah. On the eastern side Comb Ridge slopes up gently from Butler Wash. On the western side it drops vertically 800 to over 1,000 feet (245 to 300 m) to Comb Wash. For the entire 30 mile length, it is a slick rock playground and a geology and natural history museum.''

Geologically speaking, the Comb is a monocline. Translated that means it's a single fold in the Earth's crust that was created by a cataclysmic slippage of deeply buried tectonic plates some 65 million years ago. That primeval upheaval left a scar across the desert landscape. This sharp ridge of sandstone stretches unbroken from east of Kayenta, Arizona, to some ten miles west of Blanding, Utah.

Both Butler Wash and Comb Wash flow into the San Juan River which cuts through Comb Ridge between Bluff and Mexican Hat. As a warning, this is an extremely primitive area with no water, no facilities, and generally difficult access. Because of this, it there are few people.

This online reviewer stated, "The scale of the Comb is not colossal: Its ridgeline looms only from 300 to 900 feet above the plains, and shallow washes surround it on either side. But what the crest lacks in height, it makes up in ruggedness. No smooth arkte, the ridge swoops to sharp summits and dips to V-notch cols with relentless regularity. To hike the Comb is to run a gauntlet of up-and-down severities, always at an ankle-wrenching, sideways pitch. There is not a single mile of established trail in the Comb's reach, which is one reason why no humans, to our knowledge, have ever traversed its length. We thought we should be the first. Still, the Comb hike promised us more than an admittedly arbitrary wilderness first. From long before the birth of Christ through the late 13th century, Comb Ridge was home to the Anasazi, or ancestral Puebloans. Its cliffs sheltered the last-ditch, hyper defensive villages the people built just before their mass abandonment of the Four Corners, sometime in the late 1200s - still the greatest of all Anasazi mysteries. For hundreds, even thousands of years before that, the Comb's springs and seeps nourished the ancients, while the back walls of its shady, hidden alcoves served as canvases for the hallucinatory visions of its shamans.''

Each notch in Comb Ridge marks a small canyon accessed from behind the formation. You'll find traces of the Ancient Pueblo Peoples culture along the southern part of the ridge where it follows Chinle Wash.

Another online reviewer said about this area, "The combs are a very, very awesome sight to behold. We have visited The Combs many, many times since 1998. We can't get enough of them. It is an experience you will NEVER forget, looking at those rock formations standing there like combs. And they go for miles and miles. We have also visited many of the ruins that The Combs so lovingly guard over year after year. Just one of nature's many, many wonders to behold in the Bluff, Utah area.''

Another online reviewer had this to say about mountain biking in this area, "This 47-mile loop following roads of packed sediment and loose sand (along with 8 miles of pavement) is technically rather easy and aerobically moderate - if you take the recommended two days to do it. Only the fittest of riders should attempt the ride in one day and with lots of water aboard. Route finding is actually quite easy: Just stay close to Comb Ridge whenever faced with a navigation choice.''

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