Utah's Comb Ridge, Bears Ears shelter America's ancestral-Puebloan heritage

It is a privilege to experience the homeland of America's ancestral Puebloan people, whose centuries-old cliff-dwelling culture mysteriously vanished centuries ago, yet reaches out to us today at places like Utah's Comb Ridge.

Utah Hwy. 95 ascends the west face of Comb Ridge.

The dramatic sandstone uplift barely survived the Republican Trump administration's downsizing of Bears Ears National Monument -- authorized by Democratic President Barack Obama -- by 85 percent in December 2017.

The sloping east side of Comb Ridge, accessed via Lower Butler Wash Road north of U.S. Highway 163 a few miles west of Bluff, is provides vigorous-hiking access to a number of important and well-known archaeological sites. Here is one, Fish Mouth Cave.

Approach to Fish Mouth Cave from the east side

Looking east from Fish Mouth Cave

Corn cob in Fish Mouth Cave

Vandalism