I highly regret having to cut the Cottonwood Canyon chapter from the second edition of my book. It's one of my favorite ruins in southern Utah because it's well preserved, requires considerable hiking to reach, and very few people see it. It represents everything my book is supposed to be about.

However, even though the ruin itself is on public land, the hiking route I originally came up with passes through a bit of private property. In the 1990s the land owner gave me permission to pass through. By 2010, when I was revising the book, the man had passed away, and his widow made it clear that hikers are no longer tolerated on her land. I struggled to find an alternate route through the rugged terrain that was entirely on public land and also did not require technical climbing. After a couple of failed attempts my deadline was approaching so I had to give up. I do, however, still believe there are ways to legally access Cottonwood Canyon without an inordinate amount of rock scrambling. I've come up with a couple of alternate routes that look good on paper but have yet to test any of them on the ground.