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Category: Camping

Mount Peale

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Since Jared and I had cancelled our plans to hike to the summit of Mount Peale (12,721) at the end of the previous day, we didn’t bother waking up until the sun was up this morning. I asked him if he had any suggestions for hikes near Moab and after some thought he suggested that we give Mount Peale a chance since we were right near it. I was feeling better after a good night’s sleep so I figured it was worth a try, though I kind of had a feeling that we would probably bail partway up and not make it to the summit.

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Step Canyon & Pine Canyon Loop

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

On Wednesday morning Jared and I woke up with the sun, broke down camp and then hopped into my Jeep so we could drive a little further down the Mormon Trail to begin our hike. Today we would be hiking a loop starting in Step Canyon and following it down to the confluence with Pine Canyon which we then planned to hike up to complete the loop. Hiking down through Step Canyon was pretty easy with only a few obstacles that we had to get around, but as soon as we reached Pine Canyon we found that much of the canyon bottom was either full of water or slick mud and in order to get around those sections we had to deal with bushwhacking through thick vegetation. I’m sure if the canyon were dry it would have been an easy hike, but it was not too much fun today.

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North Fork of Mule Canyon

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

I woke up on Tuesday morning to the coldest temperature on the trip so far (my Jeep said it was 34 degrees out). I woke up shortly before sunrise and decided to head down to Blanding for breakfast. I was planning on taking things pretty easy today and having more of a rest day, so I was in no hurry to get anywhere. While I was in town picking up some supplies I ran into my friend Rick, whom I hadn’t seen in a while and it was nice to catch up with him for a few minutes. When I was done in town I drove back up onto Cedar Mesa for an easy day hike in the North Fork of Mule Canyon. The South Fork of Mule Canyon is a pretty popular hike that I’ve done a few times before, but I had never been up into the North Fork. Even though the South Fork is usually pretty busy, I never hear of many people going to the North Fork so I had hoped it wouldn’t be near as busy. It turns out that it wasn’t, and I only ran into one small group of people during the hike. It was a leisurely hike with a few nice ruins to explore along the way.

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Sand Canyon to Cedar Mesa

Monday, October 3, 2016

Even though the weather forecast had predicted a 100% chance of rain for my current location overnight, there were only a few sprinkles that didn’t even manage to get anything wet. I didn’t have any plans for photographing the sunrise this morning, so I woke up when it started to get light out and headed into Cortez for a quick breakfast on my way to the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. I have long wanted to hike up Sand Canyon to checkout the ruins there and figured it was finally time to do so before I continued my journey into Utah.

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Canby Mountain & The La Plata Mountains

Sunday, October 2, 2016

I had set my alarm for 5:00am this morning, but when it went off I looked outside and didn’t see any clouds, so I went back to sleep since I was still pretty tired from the previous day. I ended up waking up again just after 6:00am and realized that I might have enough time to make it over to the Dallas Divide to catch the sunrise. I quickly got ready and was soon driving through Ridgway on my way to the divide. I reached the parking area just in time and found that it was a pretty popular place this morning. I parked my Jeep, got out and took a few quick photos and then left a few minutes later. I didn’t stick around very long, maybe 10-15 minutes at the most. There were just too many people for me and the conditions weren’t anything special this morning.

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