Butler Wash Camp
A Cedar Mesa Sandstone camp at mile 50 on the San Juan, near the archaeological corridor of Butler Wash, with cottonwood shade and deepening canyon walls.
Butler Wash Camp sits near mile 50 on the San Juan River, at the mouth of Butler Wash — a major drainage entering from the north. By this point on the lower San Juan, the river has cut deeply into the Cedar Mesa Sandstone, and the canyon walls display the characteristic cross-bedded, cream-colored Permian sandstone that defines this section. The camp occupies a sandy bench on river left near the wash confluence, with cottonwood shade and good river access. Butler Wash itself is a significant archaeological corridor — Ancestral Puebloan ruins, granaries, and rock art panels are documented throughout the drainage. The camp is a common second or third night stop on the four-day Bluff to Clay Hills run. From camp, the canyon walls rise 800 feet to the Cedar Mesa plateau above, and the gooseneck meanders of the river are beginning to tighten into the entrenched curves that define the lower canyon.