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Vermilion Cliffs: Stepping Onto the Grand Staircase

Kanab: Base Camp to Southern Utah | Rock Art of the Grand Staircase
Sunday – Thursday, May 3-7, 2026

After driving all the way across the Arizona Strip on Friday and spending the remainder of the weekend exploring the Sand Hills on top of the Paria Plateau, I drove back over the northern end of the Kaibab Plateau on Sunday afternoon and made my way down to Kanab at the base of the Vermilion Cliffs to spend the rest of the week attending the 2026 UGIC Conference for work. It’s been quite a while since I last spent much time in the landscape surrounding Kanab and there were quite a few rock art sites and other short hikes that I’ve wanted to check out, so I was planning to visit as many of these sites as I could during the week when I wasn’t busy at the conference. Luckily, I was able to find plenty of time for a few sandy drives and short hikes either before or after the conference each day and was able to find most of the sites that I was looking for this week, plus a couple extras along the way! These are just some photos from my week exploring the the cliffs at the base of the Grand Staircase.

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The Paria Plateau: Returning to the Sand Hills

Beyond the High Plateaus: The Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District, Part II
Saturday – Sunday, May 2-3, 2026

After spending all day Friday driving across the Arizona Strip, I was up bright and early on Saturday morning to watch the sunrise from the edge of Marble Canyon and then drove up House Rock Valley along the base of the Kaibab Plateau to the western end of the Paria Plateau so I could spend the rest of the weekend exploring the Sand Hills on top. Aside from an amazing backpacking trip through Paria Canyon last spring, I have not been back to explore the Paria Plateau since 2019, which is a shame because it’s a place I used to enjoy visiting at least once almost every year, and sometimes many more times than that! As you can imagine, I was really looking forward to finally returning! After driving up onto the plateau via the Bonal Springs Road I spent the rest of the day following twisty, sandy, two-track roads that roughly followed the southern and western rims of the plateau while also stopping frequently to get out to hike and explore along the way.

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Roaming The Reef: Ernie Point to Eardley Canyon

Canyons of the San Rafael Reef IV | Saturday & Sunday, January 24-25, 2026

While I was initially just planning on just returning to the landscape surrounding Moab again this weekend like I typically do at this time of the year, as I was watching the winter storm unfold on Friday afternoon I saw that Moab was getting some rain and snow while the weather seemed to be completely missing the area around the San Rafael Reef, so I changed gears and decided to head over that way early on Saturday morning instead. Since I was looking to get in some decent elevation gain this weekend, I thought I might try hiking up to the Ernie Benchmark which is one of the highest points along the top of the San Rafael Reef. The drive to Green River early on Saturday morning was a bit slow with plenty of fog, snow and ice- but shortly after passing through Crescent Junction the snow and fog disappeared and the roads were dry for the remainder of the way. After topping off my gas tank in Green River I continued on to the base of the San Rafael Reef near the mouth of Ernie Canyon and prepared to start the hike. I had planned to start hiking from near the old drilling derrick, but apparently that road has now been closed since I was here last January and I would now need to hike a little further than I was expecting.

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Al Look Hill: Fruita Paleo Area to Flume Creek

Fruita Frontcountry | Wednesday, October 29, 2025

I was originally hoping to leave after work today and head over into the Canyons of the Escalante for four days to try and salvage part of my annual Southern Utah Wanderings trip that I missed earlier in the month, but Diane was still having some possible concerning issues with her recovery and I thought it would be best to stay close to home for now. Instead, I ended up going on a hike after work on a few different segments of trails surrounding Al Look Hill within the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area between the Fruita Paleo Area and Flume Creek Canyon. The total hike turned out to be about six miles and consisted mostly of trail segments that I had never hiked before.

Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin

Rock Art of the Book Cliffs XI | Friday – Sunday, May 23-25, 2025

After floating through Desolation Canyon last week I’ve become very interested in spending more time within the canyons of the Tavaputs Plateau from the crest of the Book Cliffs to the depression of the Uinta Basin, and I thought this would be the perfect place to spend this busy holiday weekend away from the more popular areas of southern Utah, just like I had done four years ago. I met up with a friend late on Friday afternoon so we could spend the remainder of the weekend camping, hiking and searching the canyons for rock art. Throughout the weekend we found quite a few petroglyphs and pictographs left by a number of different cultures and time periods from Barrier Canyon Style to Fremont and Historic Ute. We ended up driving a lot of dusty miles on rough roads, saw a lot of wildlife including wild horses and elk, plus we saw a lot of dead cows for some reason. These are some photos of what else we saw along the way…

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Category: Highpointing

Vermilion Cliffs: Stepping Onto the Grand Staircase

The Paria Plateau: Returning to the Sand Hills

Roaming The Reef: Ernie Point to Eardley Canyon

Al Look Hill: Fruita Paleo Area to Flume Creek

Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin