I Backpacked Into A Canyon and Found Something Unexpected

本站添加: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Here we go. So, where are we going?

[00:00:03]Well, not too far, about a mile. I'm in the American Southwest on the edge of this canyon. And I'm going to check out a ruin that I saw on an old map. So, I'm not only out here to check out this ruin. I'm out here for a much bigger reason.

[00:00:22]that.

[00:00:29]Whoa.

[00:00:35]But before I tell you that, uh, let's see if we can make it to this ruin before the sun goes down and then I'll fill in the details for you. I'm going to go along this ridge out around that point and somewhere around that next point should be the ruin.

[00:01:12]Wow.

[00:01:14]Look at that.

[00:01:39]Wow.

[00:02:00]Wow.

[00:02:02]That's maybe 22 25 ft.

[00:02:26]So over the decades, over the century, there's been a lot of arguments whether these were built for defensive reasons or whether they weren't. And I think it's pretty obvious they were built for defensive reasons. Some of the older sites are out on the mesa and some of the younger sites are here in these canyons oftent times back all the way into an al cove to where it could be argued is the easiest place to defend yourself from. So I wonder what was happening at the time that made them move off the exposed meases and into the canyons.

[00:03:05]When you see structures like this that are so difficult to build, it makes you think that they were afraid of something that they witnessed.

[00:03:17]It should be dark in maybe 20, 30 minutes. So, I'm going to head back to my truck. I'm going to get all my gear ready, settle in for the night, and then tomorrow morning, I'll let you know what my plan is. All right, I'm almost back to the trail head. I'm kind of missing Max. I wish I had Max with me, but then I try not to bring Max with me once it warms up for fear of rattlesnakes.

[00:03:42]Two times Max has sniffed a rattlesnake.

[00:03:45]And thankfully, it's been in the early mornings of the spring and the snakes were so cold they didn't strike, they couldn't even really react. So, I mean, what are the odds of that?

[00:04:19]Maybe uh maybe Max is looking out for me.

[00:04:27]Good morning. It rained all night, which sounded good. Peaceful, but it's 38° 40° out.

[00:04:42]All right, so what am I doing out here?

[00:04:44]Well, my hope is to go backpacking in this canyon that starts just a hundred yards from me. This canyon might be the best place to see ancient, untouched, unrestored ancestral PBLO in sightes in all the Southwest.

[00:05:04]Today, I'm going to hike about 8 to 10 miles. I'm going to set up camp and then tomorrow I'm going to look for another ancient habitation site that is hopefully much bigger than the one that we saw yesterday.

[00:05:29]So, the weather's doing better. It hasn't rained in about 20 minutes, which is good.

[00:05:40]All right.

[00:06:02]The weather started off terrible, but uh it's turned into a beautiful day. I have a mile and a half, two miles to go, and then I got to look for a campsite.

[00:06:43]Whoa, that's a big structure.

[00:07:00]Wow.

[00:07:05]Whoa.

[00:07:18]Multiple rooms here.

[00:07:23]Oh, look.

[00:07:28]Wow.

[00:07:32]That's the small corn cob indentations.

[00:07:54]That's the first time I've seen that intact closure stone.

[00:08:03]Then you have these like loopholes here.

[00:08:15]This is the POV of what they were looking at.

[00:08:29]Let's go around here.

[00:08:32]Other side.

[00:08:36]Whoa.

[00:08:41]Wow.

[00:08:47]T-shaped door.

[00:08:55]Wow.

[00:09:04]I'm curious to see what you could see through those loopholes, but I don't want to go in there.

[00:09:17]Another room right here.

[00:09:31]Wow.

[00:10:12]Oh, I'm kind of at a loss for words.

[00:10:17]It's hard to beat a view like this. You have this giant al cove that leads out to a even bigger canyon.

[00:10:41]That's the thing about this canyon is there's so many ruins around every corner that you never know when one's going to pop up. This wasn't on my map.

[00:10:51]And seeing that circular granary, that thing was so cool. that T-shaped doorway. Man, I wonder what that looked like when it was fully intact.

[00:11:04]So, I'm gonna be camping about a half mile up there.

[00:11:36]I forgot this top pole, but I think this will work.

[00:11:45]Not a bad spot.

[00:12:02]Good morning. The sun is up uh but not in the canyon.

[00:12:07]Today is all about going to check out an ancient habitation site that was marked on an old map. So, I want to go check it out. As usual, I've never been to it before, so I don't know what it looks like. So, it could be tiny, could be big, but um I got to put in two miles to get to it. So, I'm going to get moving and hope that it's something really incredible.

[00:14:53]Oh, wow.

[00:14:57]Whoa.

[00:15:02]Just that rock alone is really cool. Be really cool if there was like a ruin under here, but it just looks like mud.

[00:15:13]Wow.

[00:15:20]Oh, wait.

[00:15:23]Is that Whoa.

[00:15:31]Whoa.

[00:15:43]Oh, I'm in shock.

[00:15:46]What? I've never seen images of this before.

[00:15:51]H Have you ever seen this one before?

[00:16:05]Wow. Oh, I have so many questions.

[00:16:15]Look at this rock that they incorporated. It's gigantic.

[00:16:26]Was that one big rock that they busted a hole in?

[00:16:33]Oh, no.

[00:16:36]Looks like two.

[00:16:39]Whoa.

[00:17:00]Wow.

[00:17:23]See corn cobs.

[00:17:36]That's about as far as I could reach.

[00:17:42]Definitely have fire in here. See that ceiling? How black.

[00:17:50]I mean, look at this view.

[00:18:05]Oh, this one got me.

[00:18:09]Oh, I've never seen images of this before. This rock, these two rocks that make like a giant wheel almost or a donut.

[00:18:21]Calling it a donut is almost an insult to this.

[00:18:33]If I would have seen it from this side first, it would have looked like some ancient doorway going into the rock.

[00:18:44]I thought it was just a large granary at first, but seeing the soot on the ceiling confirms that they lived in it.

[00:18:51]And I wonder how many people lived here.

[00:18:52]Was this for a small family?

[00:18:55]So, parents and maybe a handful of kids, one or two.

[00:19:01]I was headed to the sites there on the cliffs that and then this one just seemed to come out of nowhere, which made it even more exciting.

[00:19:27]This might be one of my favorite habitation sites that I've ever seen.

[00:19:34]Um, I'm going to try and get on top of this rock. I wonder if there's anything up there.

[00:19:46]See if we could get up on this boulder.

[00:20:36]Little potholes for water, but no grind holes up here.

[00:20:50]So, the structure is right there here.

[00:20:57]All right, let's go check out these structures over here.

[00:21:21]I'm standing here and I can't see how they got up there.

[00:21:29]Uh, I'm going to get closer, but um, as I was standing here shooting that last video, I heard a loud bang and I looked up and there was dust on the ground. So that means a rock sounded like maybe the size of a baseball fell, which is not good.

[00:22:14]So, it's cliffed out over here. It's cliffed out on this side.

[00:22:25]The only way to get up, it's right here.

[00:22:54]There's just no way to get up.

[00:22:57]So, you would have to have probably a 15t ladder here.

[00:23:06]And then another one like right here.

[00:23:17]It's so tucked back in the al cove away from the elements. And since people can't access it, it can't really be destroyed. I'm sure people have come here with climbing gear and figured out how to get up there, but um I'm definitely not getting up there and most people aren't.

[00:23:38]Over here, you could kind of see the black soot like right here where they had a fire.

[00:23:47]So, not only are they hauling their mud and rock to make that structure, but there's everyday life that has to happen up there. They feared people who were after their resources or who were after some revenge or who were territorial.

[00:24:05]Who knows what they feared, but it's thought that as the drought set in and that food became scarce, they probably raided each other.

[00:24:16]That was the reason to move out of here.

[00:24:18]At some point, there was probably full collapse of resources and they left this place.

[00:24:27]This is one of the coolest sites I've seen. It's unfortunate that I can't get up there, but um and I love leaving a little bit of mystery behind. Seeing that structure under that giant boulder with the ring of rock laid in. That's one of the most incredible sites that I've ever seen. One of the most incredible structures.

[00:24:49]And uh I don't think I could top it. So um thank you for watching and that's the end of this one. I'm going to head back to my camp.