Devils Chasm 8-14-05 (13 images)

Today I went out to Devils Chasm. It's a gnarly little canyon in the middle of the Sierra Ancha mountains. At the end, there is a really well preserved Salado cliff dwelling. This is not an official forest service trail. Actually, there is no trail. That's the main reason the dwelling is so well preserved. Anyways, the hike up the chasm was harder then I expected. The hike is pretty straight forward: Follow the creek up the canyon and you'll run into the dwelling up on your right. So that's what I did. After about 2 hours of hiking, I had left the creek bed and started hiking up a very steep, very loose hill, just like I was told I would. After like 10 minutes of climbing this hill, I had come to some sheer, vertical cliffs. I wasn't sure if I was going the right way. There was no trail whatsoever. I could have climbed them, but coming back down would have been risky. And since I was by myself, and I hadn't seen another human the entire day, I decided against it. So I failed at finding the dwelling. That really sucked. I was pissed. But oh well, the hike was still fun. I'll hunt that bitch down another day when I'm not by myself.

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