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The Fourth: Cunningham Gulch & Stony Pass

Independence Day | Thursday – Friday, July 3-4, 2025

This holiday weekend Jackson and I were planning to spend three days backpacking a segment of the Colorado Trail through the Weminuche Wilderness, but unfortunately I started to have some issues with the elevation on Thursday night while we were camped up in Cunningham Gulch and I had to drive down lower in the middle of the night to start feeling better and to try to get some sleep. With that in mind, I figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to head off into the high Wilderness of the Weminuche where a retreat to lower terrain would not be as quick and easy, so we cancelled those plans on Friday morning and decided to just go on a shorter hike along the Continental Divide and then spend the rest of the day testing both of our new vehicles by driving over Stony Pass. Between the recent vehicle troubles and not feeling well at elevation, my mountain season has not gotten off to a great start this year, but I am hoping that things will start getting better soon. Even though we didn’t get to go on our backpacking trip this weekend, we did experience some excellent foggy and cloudy conditions on Friday morning that were fun to photograph, so that was a positive! These are some photos from our truncated Independence Day weekend.

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Black Ridge Trail – Rim Rock Drive Hike n’ Bike Loop

Heart of the World | Sunday, June 1, 2025

While Diane and I were originally planning to beat the heat this weekend by backpacking on top of the Grand Mesa, after driving up onto the Mesa Saturday morning we found that the road to our desired trailhead was still gated and closed so we decided to just return home to take a break and relax instead. Of course, I just couldn’t stay home all weekend, so I decided to head up into the Colorado National Monument very early on Sunday morning so I could continue working on my Heart of the World project by hiking the Black Ridge Trail and then competing a loop by riding my bike back to the trailhead on Rim Rock Drive. Although it seems pretty popular among road bikers, I have never really had the desire to bike any part of Rim Rock Drive before, but I thought it might be fun to try it once. I left home well before sunrise on Sunday morning and dropped my bike off at the Upper Liberty Cap Trailhead before continuing on to the other end of the trail at the Visitor Center to start the hike.

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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Crack-In-Rock Pueblo at Wupatki National Monument

Saturday, April 12, 2025

After the huge disappointment of not being able to hike to the Crack-In-Rock Pueblo in the backcountry at Wupatki National Monument last October because of wet weather, earlier this year I was lucky enough to get us signed up again for the spring hike that was scheduled for this Saturday. The timing couldn’t have worked out much better for us since we would already be hiking out of the Grand Canyon at the end of our rafting trip on Wednesday and would just need to stick around Flagstaff for a couple extra days. After spending Thursday and Friday around Flagstaff, we were up early on Saturday morning and made our way over to the Visitor Center at Wupatki National Monument before 9:00am where we met up with the Rangers and the rest of the small group that would be going on the hike. After a brief orientation we all hopped into the three vehicles that took us to the starting point for the hike via bumpy backroads surrounding the park.

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Walnut Canyon National Monument & Keyhole Sink

An Easy Day Around Flagstaff | Thursday, April 10, 2025

After spending the last five days on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and then hiking out via the Bright Angel Trail yesterday, it was time for a rest day out of the record heat that had arrived in the southwest. When I first booked this river trip I had originally planned to drive home today so we could get back to work on Friday, but earlier this year I managed to get us signed up for another Crack-In-Rock Pueblo hike at Wupatki National Monument on Saturday, so we needed to stick around Flagstaff for a couple more days instead. Although we mainly wanted to rest and relax today, we had a few hours in the afternoon while we were between check-out and check-in times at different hotels, so we headed out on a few easy local hikes to pass the time.

Category: Touring

The Fourth: Cunningham Gulch & Stony Pass

Black Ridge Trail – Rim Rock Drive Hike n’ Bike Loop

Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin

Crack-In-Rock Pueblo at Wupatki National Monument

Walnut Canyon National Monument & Keyhole Sink