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Christmas in Arches 2020

Christmas Day | Friday, December 25, 2020

Since Christmas Day fell on a Friday this year, I had booked a hotel room in Moab so we could spend the entire weekend in the area. Of course, this was before COVID struck and changed everything. We had considered cancelling these reservations and figuring something else to do this weekend, but in the end we decided to carry on with our plans. Early on Friday morning Diane and I left home and headed straight for Arches National Park, like we do every year. We drove all the way through the park and made it to the Devils Garden Trailhead shortly after sunrise so we could hike to Landscape Arch to make sure that it is still standing after another year. It’s our Christmas tradition!

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The Intrepid Trails at Dead Horse Point State Park

Saturday & Sunday, December 5-6, 2020

Since Diane and I both got new mountain bikes within the past couple of months and I am actually enjoying riding the new bike I got so far, I thought it would be fun to reserve a yurt at Dead Horse Point State Park for the weekend so we could check out the Intrepid Mountain Bike Trails since they are supposed to be on the easy side and we are still both pretty new to this. Also, since we enjoyed our stay in a yurt at Goblin Valley State Park last winter, I was interested in doing it again and spending more quality time exploring another of Utah’s State Parks since all of my previous visits to Dead Horse Point have been quick visits at sunrise for photos. When I booked the yurt back in October I knew that I was taking a chance on the weather, especially since we wanted to mountain bike. In early December there could be a foot of snow from a recent winter storm up here, or it could be beautiful sunny weather in the 50’s during the day. Thankfully we got lucky this weekend and had pretty great conditions for this time of the year. The highs were in the upper 40’s with a lot of sunshine and the lows were only in the low 30’s, which was even warmer than our Thanksgiving trip to Cedar Mesa last weekend. Of course, the lows at night didn’t really matter much to us since we were staying in a heated yurt.

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Veterans Day Around Spring Canyon Point

Moab Area Rock Art XXXV | Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Apparently this is the week that almost nothing seems to be going right for me! Not only were my plans of going to Cedar Mesa over this past weekend changed, but I was off from work this week so Diane and I could spend it exploring the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with Jerry some more. However, some things came up for all of us that prevented the trip from happening at the last minute. Since I was now home on Veterans Day with no other plans I decided to take a drive out to Spring Canyon Point near Moab to visit some new arches for the day.

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Cane Wash: Locomotive Point to the San Rafael River

Friday – Saturday, November 6-7, 2020

I was originally planning to spend three days alone on Cedar Mesa this weekend, but the weather forecast had other plans for me with rain and snow predicted for much of that time. So instead of driving all the way down to Cedar Mesa and getting shut down by the weather, I planned to stay a little closer to home in the San Rafael Swell so I could try to get a hike in on Saturday morning and then head home before the storm arrived. I decided that hiking down Cane Wash to the San Rafael River sounded like a good plan because I figured that even if I didn’t beat the storm this hike and drive wouldn’t be a problem in the rain or snow.

Hatch Point: The Other Island in the Sky

Halloween Weekend Exploring the Canyon Rims Recreation Area Under a Blue Hunter’s Moon
Friday – Sunday, October 31 – November 1, 2020

Talk about a stacked weekend! Not only was it Halloween on Saturday, but there was also going to be a Blue Moon along with the Daylight Savings Time change overnight, and I knew that I definitely wanted to spend this weekend exploring the Canyonlands region some more. Aside from a brief but amazing evening at the Needles Overlook in January, it’s been a while since I spent any real time in the Canyon Rims Recreation Area and I thought that it would be fun to spend a full weekend exploring Hatch Point again. Aside from a couple of semi-popular overlooks, I feel like this area which is located just to the east of Canyonlands National Park gets overlooked and I would like to see more of it!