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Tag: bluff

Bears Ears National Monument

President’s Day Weekend | Saturday – Monday, February 18-20, 2017

This holiday weekend was supposed to be our first camping trip of the year, but the wet weather forecast made me rethink those plans at the last minute. Throughout the prior week and up until Friday the forecast was calling for 90-100% chance of rain and snow on Cedar Mesa and the surrounding area for Saturday and Sunday. I was about to cancel the trip altogether and stay home, but I decided to check hotel rates in Blanding on Friday afternoon and found a King Suite at the Rodeway Inn for $36 a night. At that price I couldn’t pass it up and figured that even if the weather didn’t cooperate with us, at least we’d have a nice getaway for the long weekend that wouldn’t cost very much. I am glad we still went because we had an awesome time and the weather really didn’t interfere too much.

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San Juan Canyon

The San Juan River | Sand Island to Mexican Hat
Sunday – Wednesday, May 11-14, 2014

We didn’t have any luck in the San Juan River lottery again this year, but I managed to grab an open date on the calendar for a time my friends and I would be able to go during the month of May. Like last year, I was only able to secure a permit from Sand Island to Mexican Hat. It was probably a good thing because I really didn’t want to take too much more time off from work in May since I had already taken a few days for my backpacking trip in Salt Creek Canyon and I have a few other days scheduled off for later in the month.

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Cedar Mesa & Beyond

Friday – Sunday, March 14-16, 2014

On Friday morning, Diane and I headed south towards Cedar Mesa in southern Utah to spend a long weekend hiking, camping and searching for some new rock art sites along the way. While the weather was nice during the days it was still a bit cold overnight and in the mornings, especially on Sunday morning when it dropped down to the low 20’s when we woke up around sunrise. Friday was a little breezy with nice clouds in the sky but Saturday was very windy. We got sand-blasted on Saturday pretty good while searching boulders for petroglyphs in the afternoon. When Sunday arrived the winds had finally calmed down and the skies had cleared. We had a great weekend and managed to find everything we were looking for.

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Bluff Balloon Festival

Saturday & Sunday, January 18-19, 2014

The Bluff Balloon Festival is an annual event that I have wanted to attend for a number of years, yet for some reason or another I have never made it down there for it. This year I finally changed that! Diane and I drove down to spend the weekend around Bluff so we could get a little hiking in and watch the balloons in the Valley of the Gods on Sunday morning. I don’t think we could have asked for a better weekend of weather in January since the temperature reached 60 degrees while we were out hiking on Saturday. It was great to get out of the colder weather in Grand Junction for a little while 🙂

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The San Juan River

Sand Island to Mexican Hat
Wednesday – Friday, May 8-10, 2013

I have wanted to get on the San Juan River for a while, but because of the permit system in place I have never really tried. This year I decided it was finally time to try and secure a permit for myself and a few friends from work. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get any permits from the original lottery. However, I was able to grab an opening at a later date. We had originally wanted to try and do the whole stretch of the San Juan from Sand Island to the Clay Hills Crossing, but the permit we were able to get only let us go to Mexican Hat on this trip.

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