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Return to Bryce Canyon National Park & Red Canyon

Edges of the Paunsaugunt Plateau | Saturday – Tuesday, November 8-11, 2025

Earlier in the year, well before she even knew she had a meningioma and would need brain surgery in October, Diane told me that she wanted to go to Bryce Canyon National Park sometime this year because she had never been there before and it was the only National Park in Utah that she hadn’t been to yet, so I planned a trip for us to visit the park over the Veterans Day holiday and weekend in early November. Of course, after her surgery in early October and the rough recovery afterwards, I wasn’t sure if we were still going to be able to go on this trip, but as the dates got closer and she continued to slowly get better every day and was no longer under any restrictions, we decided to still go, even if she would only able to visit the overlooks from the rim. Although I had initially planned to go on some longer hikes when I started making plans for this trip earlier in the year, I had no problems toning down those plans so we could experience the park together now. I thought this extended weekend might be a nice getaway for Diane who has spend most of the last month either in the hospital or at home.

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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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Desolation Canyon & Gray Canyon of the Green River

Splitting the Tavaputs Plateau in Two: Sand Wash to Swaseys Beach
Sunday – Saturday, May 11-17, 2025 | Average CFS: 6,665

After getting permits for Yampa Canyon and the Canyon of Lodore over the past two years, Jackson’s and my main goal for this year was to try and get a Spring Low-Use Season permit for the Green River through Desolation Canyon and Gray Canyon as we continue to work our way through more sections of the Colorado River and Green River across the Colorado Plateau. Although Jackson and I have still have never actually won a permit in any of the lotteries we have entered over the years we have been lucky enough to grab permits and cancellations during the general releases after the fact, and this time I managed to get us a permit for Desolation Canyon back in mid-March. Once we had the permit we quickly got started on the planning process since the launch date was only about two months away, but we quickly found out that many of our usual river friends were unable to make the trip this spring. Luckily, our friends Bob and Lisa were able to go and they had a few other friends that they were able to invite on the trip with us, two of whom were very familiar with Desolation Canyon and were a great addition to the trip! In the end I enjoyed rafting with everyone who was on this trip and would invite every single one of them back in a heartbeat!

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Gore Trail Loop & West Fork of Pollock Canyon

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, May 2-4, 2025

Since I have another week-long river trip coming up very soon that I need to start getting ready for, I stayed local this weekend and decided to go on a pair of backcountry hikes that are located within the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness. These are two hikes that I’ve been thinking about doing for a number of years at this point, but I have never made them a priority to get around to before and figured it was finally time to give them a go! The first hike I wanted to try follows an old 4×4 road that shows up on some maps as the Gore Trail and encircles a mesa located between the heads of Knowles Canyon and Jones Canyon. It looked like this loop was going to be around 16 miles in length, which includes a couple miles on BS Road to close the loop, and since I wanted to get an early start on Saturday morning I headed up to Glade Park later on Friday afternoon and spent the night on the edge of Sieber Canyon.

Keg Point and the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness

Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, April 18-20, 2025

After spending last week in Arizona and then driving up to Salt Lake City in the middle of this past week to attend a concert on Wednesday evening I had fully intended to take this weekend off to stay home and relax for the first time this year, but Diane was going to be working nights this weekend and she wanted me out of the house so she could get some rest in between shifts. I quickly threw together a last minute itinerary and left after work on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend exploring the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness on the west side of the Green River where I could go on some hikes that I’ve wanted to do for a long time but have kept putting off. I was hoping this area wouldn’t be too busy over the Easter holiday weekend and thankfully that turned out to be a good bet!

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Tag: arches

Return to Bryce Canyon National Park & Red Canyon

Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin

Desolation Canyon & Gray Canyon of the Green River

Gore Trail Loop & West Fork of Pollock Canyon

Keg Point and the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness