Monument Valley Meander - The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips - page 446

8. Bluff
At the end of the Valley of the Gods road, turn east onto Rte. 163. Though it's only 15
milesorsofromheretothelittlesettlement ofBluff,traversingthisbriefstretchmusthave
seemed an eternity to the party of Mormon pioneers who first ventured into southeastern
Utah in 1880.
The Mormons came here by wagon train from Escalante, more than 100 miles to the
northwest. In the final miles before the pioneers reached the San Juan Valley, they had to
surmount the nearly vertical upwarp of the Earth's crust called Comb Ridge. Today, mod-
ern travelers on Rte. 163 scale and descend the same barrier with far greater safety and
comfort. Still, one can imagine how daunting that 800-foot climb must have seemed to pi-
oneers when it first came into view.
Once across the ridge, the exhausted Mormons found rest on the banks of the San Juan
River,ataplacetheynamedBluff.Thetownneverprospered(thereareonlyafewhundred
residents today, not counting those buried in the little hilltop cemetery), but it is a pretty
enough spot, with sandstone towers—the Navajo Twins—standing guard over the river.
Three miles south, beneath the cottonwoods that line the riverbanks at Sand Island,
rafters set out for float trips on the San Juan. Just downstream you'll find a cliff adorned
with Indian pictographs that portray a band of mythological flute players—images that
were already centuries old when the first covered wagons rattled into Bluff.
The pioneer spirit that brought the Mormons into this southeastern corner of Utah was
still very much alive in 1943 when Fr. Harold Lieber founded St. Christopher's Episcopal
Mission two miles northeast of Bluff. A serene spot, the mission is a shady haven built of
locally quarried sandstone. About a mile past the mission, you can sample pioneer engin-
eering with a nerve-jangling walk across a swaying, planked suspension bridge five feet
above the San Juan River. The adventure is worthwhile: once across the river, a one-mile
walk leads to the ruins of a 14-room Anasazi dwelling, built against a cliffside decorated
with the ocher-tinted handprints of the Ancient Ones.