Press "Enter" to skip to content

Category: Camping

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.

1 Comment

Stone Desert: End of Trails in The Needles

Big Spring Canyon – Elephant Canyon Loop
Friday – Sunday, November 30 – December 2, 2018

After looking over the official map for the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park earlier this year, I noticed that I had hiked just about every single trail on it, so I figured it would be a good goal to try and finish hiking them all this year. After hiking a few of those remaining trails earlier in the year, I only had a few segments of trails in the Big Spring Canyon area left, so Diane and I headed down to The Needles this weekend so I could finish them up in one big loop on Saturday.

8 Comments

Horsin’ Around: The Return to Horse Canyon

Friday – Sunday, November 16-18, 2018

It’s been over six years since the last time I drove into Horse Canyon which is located in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. The road washed out again shortly after that trip and I don’t think it’s been open much, if at all, since then. When I noticed at the end of October that the road was actually open again, I quickly put together a last minute weekend trip with my friends Dave and Jared since I’m not sure how long it will stay open this time! Jared came along on my last trip here but this would be Dave’s first time in Horse Canyon and he was looking forward to it. I reserved a campsite for us at Peekaboo in Salt Creek Canyon on Saturday night so we could spend two full days in the canyon and not have to deal with getting day-use permits. I left work on Friday afternoon and met up with them outside of the Park along the Lockhart Basin Road where we spent the first night since we were able to have a fire here to keep warm on the cold night. On Saturday morning we got a late start since we had to wait until the Visitor Center opened at 9:00am to get the combination to the gate which wasted a couple hours of daylight on these short days. Once we had the combination we headed through the gate and spent the rest of the weekend searching for arches, ruins and rock art. We found plenty of all of them! Enjoy these photos from our weekend trip!

1 Comment

Exploring The Esplanade

The Hades Site | Veterans Day Weekend
Thursday – Sunday, November 8-11, 2018

Over the past couple of years I have been trying to spend a long weekend during the late fall searching for Grand Canyon Polychrome Pictographs on the Esplanade in the Grand Canyon. This year Diane and I met up with our friend Jerry and went on a three day – two night backpacking trip in search of the Hades Site. Diane and I left after work on Wednesday evening and spent the night in St. George so we could see if the ancient mug I found earlier this year was on display yet. Unfortunately, it was not on display when we stopped by the BLM Visitor Center on Thursday morning since it’s apparently in Cedar City right now for some reason, but at least we were able to sleep in later and not have to drive very far this morning.

5 Comments

A Weekend in the Bears Ears

Friday – Sunday, October 26-28, 2018

This weekend I headed down to Cedar Mesa in Bears Ears National Monument after work on Friday where I met up with my friend Alan so we could go on one hike Saturday morning before he had to drive back up to Salt Lake City to catch a plane back to France. He had spent the last two weeks in the southwest and this was his last hike before heading back home. After we parted ways I spent the rest of the weekend hiking and searching for ruins and rock art on my own. The weather was pretty nice for hiking but there was a little more humidity than I would have preferred. I guess I should also mention that this is my 900th trip report here on ADVENTR.co! Enjoy these photos I took over the weekend!

1 Comment