Allan was up early and got some photos of our camp - here you can see Fred (behind bush) and his tent.

Will's and Allan's tents - Will borrowed my Sierra Designs Lightyear 1 tent for the trip.

It was an overcast morning, which was good as it kept the temperature down.

Cooking area with convenient sitting/table rock.  You can see from the color of the water in the jug that the water is pretty good.
(Note that the new REI jug, which replaced the old reliable Reliance 5 gal jug has a mouth that is too small for the filter plug)

Shelby's tent with Fred's beyond.  Note the rock anchors on the sandstone.

View of the Pouroff from below - you can see it was quite a hump up to get the water in the potholes.  But as they say "Beggars can't be choosers", and we were begging for water at that point.

Getting ready to go - Bill, Mike, Will, Fred and Shelby.  I'm putting on my hiking boots sitting on our convenient rock bench.  You can see the steep trail behind us that you take up to the potholes for water.  It's good that you're carrying it down instead of up!

Will's photo looking down canyon - looks like I'm the last one ready as usual.

While we were having breakfast a very large group of Colorado high school students passed us by.  They were completing an outdoor class with a backpacking trip.

Shelby & Will - Bill's almost ready.  When I moved my pack in the morning, I found a large cricket that had crawled under it to keep warm.  Just before I left, I saw that ants had found him and were dismembering him as he was immobilized in the morning chill .

Unusual cottonwood giant at the junction of Bullet Canyon with Grand Gulch.

Will - it was unusual to see all the camps at the junction empty (no water as the spring had dried up).  Whenever we had camped here before, there were no sites without tents.

We took a break a ways down the Gulch beyond the mouth of Bullet Canyon. As we were sitting there, we met the second group of Colorado High School Students coming up from Green House Canyon, where we were planning to camp that night.  They said that the water situation there was pretty sketchy.

Shelby took all of my maps (I print out 11x17 copies of Google Earth images) and lined them up showing our planned trip. Bullet Canyon is the line of maps to the right. The bottom two maps are Grand Gulch with Green House Canyon.  The three maps bending up to the left are Grand Gulch and then Sheiks Canyon.

Discussion whether to go with the original plan and continue down to Green House Canyon or to backtrack and head for Sheiks Canyon for the night.  As the hiking down from the junction is what we kindly refer to as "Bastard Miles" and with sketchy water, we decided to take the latter option.

Mike in Grand Gulch wash above the junction with Bullet - usually this is a boggy and muddy mess.

It was easy hiking in the wash this year - in 2016, it was like THIS along this same stretch of canyon.

Through a break in the trees, you can see Wall Ruin. If you enlarge to original size, you can see the members of the Colorado High School at the ruin.

Telephoto of Wall Ruin - you can make out the students.  We didn't visit this ruin in 2016.

It's a steep climb over slickrock to get to the ruin, but septuagenarian Allan made it and got this photo of Fred and Shelby below.

Looking up canyon from inside the walls of Wall Ruin - the wall with the opening seen in previous images is at the far end shown here.

The upper level of Wall Ruin is accessed by a slot which you can see at the left.

Looking down from the ruin - Will is making his way up and Bill is just arriving at the right.

The wall at the up canyon end has a curve to it similar to a kiva, but there are no smoke darkened areas indicating that it was.  Looks from the rubble in the foreground that there was a wall there separating it from the rest.

From the outside, it looks like the openings in the wall are "arrow slits", but as you can see here, they are at the bottom of the inside wall probably for ventilation.  Fill inside the wall as been added to make a level floor.

There is a granary behind this slab of rock that has splintered off the face of the alcove.

Bill's video of Mike climbing down (butt slide) from the ruin.  Fred and I didn't go up.  I was up there in 2002 (as seen HERE).  On this trip, it looked a little too steep and being a few months shy of being 75 instead of 59, I opted to stay below.

Will and Mike clamber over a boulder field obstructing the ledge.

Drainage chute worn into the ledge over thousands of years

As we round a bend a gem of a ruin appears - looking almost like a Moorish castle

Will & Bill approaching the ruin (Shelby was carrying my pack through this section)

Will - In the shadows you can see Fred & Shelby taking advantage of the shade on a hot day.

This ruin doesn't have a name AFAIK, but it reminds me of a Moorish Castle, so I am calling it the El Cid Ruin, after one of my favorite movies of my youth!

There is a narrow passage between the Large room at the left and the granary at the right. The granary door seems to be in a poor position because of the narrowness of the space between the walls.

In the back of the passage there is a bed of twigs and sticks.  It's hard to imagine animals or the wind bringing them in here.

Looking into the interior of the main room from the top - note the openings.

View across the top of the granary. I wonder what they used for a roof as there is no evidence of beams or rafters as found in other ruins.

Looking the other direction - the top of the wall is relatively flat.

Shelby & Bill - photo taken from passage between the granary and the main room.

Looking through the granary door from the opposite side. Enlarge photo to see what appears to be "finger" marks shaping the clay mortar as it was placed.  No that is not a Vibram sole print at the upper left.

Allan in the passage, showing the height of the walls and the size of the door.

Fred - The door to the main room features the common "Block T" shape.  You can see that the height of the walls is pretty even across the ruin, except at the back.

Mike found a rounded "rock" laying in the sand and when he picked it up it turned out to be an intricately decorated pottery shard.

To the left of the main room of the ruin are two granaries, and what appears to be a built up terrace to provide a level floor.  Note the unusual "block" depressions in the mortar - like stones were pressed into the clay before it set.

Another view of the "Terrace" and the rounded wall of the main ruin.

Photo showing the openings in the rounded wall- two different styles.

This ruin is fairly large and door seems larger than normal for a typical granary.

Side of ruin - seems like the builder took a short cut with that large rock. I'm wondering why the bottom courses are not grouted as the upper.

View of the alcove and the patterns in the rock above - also note the strange pile of rocks to the right of the ruin leveling a hole in the bedrock.

There was a little bit of shade so we ducked in to escape the heat for a little while

When we got up to go, we found that behind us was a petraglyph panel - a serendipitous surprise.

Bighorn sheep marching along - this blocky design seems to the standard one common to many panels across Utah.  Compare them to the "frisky" bighorns also found on this panel

Close up of frog(?) - in the sunlight you can see the indentation in the rock

Concentric circles with an extended wavy line.  Seems to be a common theme:
Slickhorn Canyon (2015)
Lower Grand Gulch (2006)

Looking across the canyon - trails from the bench down to the wash

Will - A little further up canyon from the previous photos are these Hoodoos across the way.

We found a shady spot around the bend and while we were sitting there someone (can't remember who) spotted a granary across the canyon.  Enlarge the picture to original size and look above the highest branch of the lower tree at center right.

Allan shares an off color joke during our break.  Just prior to this, Mike swapped out his full SD card from his GoPro with an extra that Will had.  You can see Will putting the card in a ziploc bag and putting it in his pack.  Unfortunately between then and when we got back, the card was lost including all the footage up to that point of the trip.

While it was fairly easy to get up on the ledge, getting down was not. Steep gullies due to erosion as seen here made things difficult.  Shelby came back up this one to show me the way down - you couldn't just hike down the gully as it was periodically choked with debris so you had to bushwhack out and around.  Not a pleasant experience.

On the way down, Will had an unfortunate encounter with an angry Prickly Pear cactus (with the emphasis on "Prickly").

Allan made his way down and his encounter with a Prickly Pear cactus was much different.

A memorable section of slickrock - it was much different in 2002 with a large pool of water here: Click Here.

Bill huffing and puffing his way up to our camp. At this point I was really worried as there was water along this whole stretch in 2016, but was totally dry two years later.

Mike and his GoPro investigate the source of the Green Mask Spring.

Mike follows the water flow from the source down to the pools where Fred, Will, and Allan are filling our jugs with water. Along the way are encounters with frogs and tadpoles galore.

Pouring water into the 5 gal jug - this was a new jug from REI.  It wasn't the old reliable from Reliance of Canada and fell short as the mouth was too small for the water filter intake hose plug.

Will pumping water.  Shelby mixing the cheesecake for dessert and the water's on for super sugary spiced tea.

Pre-wash and Wash of Chili Night dishes.  Bill & Shelby erecting their tents