The Moon House is on BLM land (Bureau of Land Management) and you’ll need a permit to hike here. BLM limits daily visits to 20 people (as of this post). To access this hike, you’ll need a high clearance vehicle because the road is a technical road. Keep your eye on the weather. If it rains, this road is impassible. Most pickup trucks will have no trouble getting through. If you own a Jeep, you’ll probably love this road. Here are some pictures of the road:
When you see that first split (previous picture), go to the left.
The Moon House entrance is clearly marked on the left side of a four-way corner. To the right is a camping ground parking lot and the road continues straight ahead. It’s still another mile and a half drive down the access road to the parking at the trailhead. The road leading back there is two tracks and one track is deep. So you’ll be riding on an angle the whole way. It’s fortunate that the number of visitors is limited because there are only a couple of places where you could pull off and let someone by. If anyone comes from the other direction, you’ll have to back up quite a way.
Here’s the trail:
That last photo shows a four-foot drop that you must jump off. You’ll be hopping onto a pile of rocks. When I tried to get back up, I couldn’t get a good enough grip. The cairns say that you must go to the tree and climb up there. That’s how I managed to get up. When climbing up the tree, you’ll end up on slick-rock that is very steep. Make sure you have a good pair of shoes that stick to slick rock. I got a bit of a running start up the slick rock to get to a small ledge, then worked over from there. This is not a trail for the faint of heart or new hikers.
From that point, you’ll cross a ledge and see the ruins across the way. Then you’ll have to climb down a very steep and slippery rocky surface (just more fun).
Once you reach the bottom, you’ll need to walk to the right until you see the trail that goes up the other side:
You’ll come to a boulder and it looks like a dead end. You need to climb up that boulder, near the slot:
Now you’re on a wide ledge. Be sure to walk all the way to the left and to the right. There are more ruins on each side. The instructions in the ammo box tell visitors to stay out of the rooms but you may walk in the hallways:
You can see the steep trail that led to the bottom from the ledge:
