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Tag: winter camp wash

Easter Sunday on Winter Camp Ridge

Easter | Sunday, April 9, 2023

For a change, I actually stayed home most of this weekend to get some stuff done around the house and relax for a bit. It’s a rare occurrence, but sometimes I need a little break from camping and hiking. However, after being home all day on Saturday I was already ready to get back outdoors and I did end up getting out to hike for a couple of hours on Easter morning. I left early on Sunday without any real plans on where I was headed, and I ended up in one of my favorite areas close to home on Winter Camp Ridge. I drove out to the end of that sandy track and then rim-walked along the edge of Salt Wash just within the boundary of Arches National Park. It was a lovely morning for a walk in the backcountry!

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Christmas in Arches 2019

Christmas Day | Wednesday, December 25, 2019

It’s Christmas time again and that means it’s time for our annual Christmas trip to Arches National Park! We left home early on Wednesday morning and headed west into Utah during the tail end of a winter storm that left a little snow, ice and fog in its wake. This slowed down our drive just a little bit, but we still made it to Arches in about two hours. We headed straight to the Devils Garden Trailhead so we could start off the day with our annual hike to Landscape Arch to make sure it’s still standing after another year.

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Return To Silence: Delicate Arch

New Year’s Day | Tuesday, January 1, 2019

To be honest, I never thought I would be visiting Delicate Arch in Arches National Park ever again since it’s become a very busy place over the past few years. However, there was a perfect storm of events that allowed Diane and I to watch the first sunset of 2019 at Delicate Arch with our friend Jared and absolutely no one else around! When I saw that the road into Arches National Park was closed on Monday morning because of a snowstorm and there was no money to plow and maintain it because of the government shutdown, I knew instantly that I needed to try and get to Delicate Arch for sunset on New Year’s Day if it didn’t open back up before then!

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Lower Salt Wash Canyon

Friday – Saturday, December 14-15, 2018

Salt Wash begins its journey near Thompson Springs at the southern end of the Book Cliffs just east of Sego Canyon. From there it meanders generally south across Yellow Cat Flat and joins up with Lost Spring Canyon inside the boundary of Arches National Park. This desert wash eventually passes by the Wolfe Ranch near the popular trailhead for Delicate Arch as it enters Cache Valley and then carves a deep canyon through Dry Mesa just east of The Windows before finally reaching the Colorado River. I have studied this particular canyon on maps over the years and thought about hiking it a number of times before, but I always seem to find somewhere else I’m more interested in going instead. I haven’t found much information about hiking this canyon and wasn’t sure what to expect, but I guess that is what intrigued me about this location in the first place.

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Dome Plateau

Saturday, March 5, 2016

This weekend Diane and I decided not to stray too far from home and made our way out to the Dome Plateau area northeast of Arches National Park to do a little exploring. We started out by driving up onto Winter Camp Ridge to check on a geocache I placed here a few years back. It’s also an area we just enjoy visiting.

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