Aztec Butte rises prominently over expansive brush flats with exceptional views across the Island Mesa, adjacent buttes and Trail Canyon. Ancestral Puebloans settled in Canyonlands about 800 years ago, and built storage structures called granaries to cache and preserve harvests for future use. The Aztec Butte Trail leads to several of these exceptionally well preserved structures.

Around 1300 A.D., changing weather patterns impacted agriculture and the Ancestral Puebloans began migrating south from Canyonlands

Though typically associated with inaccessible cliffs, it's not uncommon for Desert Bighorn Sheep to graze the grasslands of Island Mesa

Once stocked with squash, beans and maze, granaries were sealed with stone and mud

Lupine can be poisonous to sheep and horses, posing a challenge to early ranchers in this area

Native Americans used boiled primrose roots for digestive and respiratory ailments

Blooming mahonia emits a strong, pleasant fragrance detectable from a distance

A few steps off the slickrock path leads to exceptional views over Trail Canyon and the Alcove Spring Trail

Sticky shoes and 3-4 points of contact are required to scale the near-vertical slopes of Aztec Butte

The Aztec Butte Granaries are concealed and sheltered by the butte's mesa rim

Though Aztec Butte is 'singular', it refers to a complex of buttes in the area around which artifacts can be found

When Canyonlands was established in 1964, there were approximately 100 bighorn sheep remaining in the park; today the herds total 350

Trail Canyon's many fingers can be seen from high points on the Aztec Butte Trail

Though concentrated around Salt Creek in the Needles District, Ancestral Puebloans built granaries throughout Canyonlands

Buttes were ideal places to build cache-granaries because they could be easily seen and navigated to from long distances

Grasslands in the high desert take root in areas where soils are several feet thick

A deceptively challenging .2 mile, 185' climb leads to the top of Aztec Butte