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Fiftymile Point to Davis Gulch & The Hole-in-the-Rock

Fiftymile Point to Davis Gulch & The Hole-in-the-Rock

Canyons of the Escalante | Southern Utah Wanderings
Wednesday – Friday, October 5-7, 2022

After spending the last day and a half along the western end of the Vermilion Cliffs we headed back over the Paunsaugunt Plateau and returned to Escalante early on Wednesday afternoon. While we were in town we grabbed some dinner and topped off our fuel tanks before heading southeast down the Hole-in-the-Rock Road below the Straight Cliffs. Surprisingly, the road was in better condition than we were expecting and we made great time to the Davis Gulch Trailhead located just below Fiftymile Point. We still had plenty of time until sunset, so we decided to continue on to the very end of the road so we could maybe hike down the Hole-in-the-Rock to Lake Powell. I hadn’t been out to the end of the Hole-in-the-Rock Road since 2009, so it was nice to refresh my memory of the area.

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The Green River: High Water in Labyrinth Canyon

Ruby Ranch to Mineral Bottom | Average CFS: 17,300
Thursday – Sunday, June 2-5, 2022

After spending a full week circling around the Colorado Plateau with Diane, then having two days at home to rest and two more days back at work, it was finally time to get back on the river! Although my friends and I had entered a couple river permit lotteries earlier in the year, none of us were successful at getting any, so instead we decided to do another float through Labyrinth Canyon of the Green River from Ruby Ranch to Mineral Bottom. While I typically prefer to float the Green River and Colorado River through the canyonlands region in the late summer when there are plenty of sandbars for camping on, which are some of my absolute favorite places to camp, I figured it would be interesting to see what the river was like at high water, even though I knew that it was going to be a busy place with limited campsites at this time of the year. I knew from the start that I wasn’t going to be doing much hiking and exploring on this trip, so I just planned on a relaxing float down the river with plenty of time spent in camp.

Lava Tube Caving at El Malpais National Monument

Alternate Plans: Back on the Four Corners Circuit
Friday & Saturday, May 27-28, 2022

The first time Diane and I visited El Malpais National Monument we knew that we wanted to explore some of the lava tube caves in the park, but at that time all the roads were snow-covered and muddy and the caves were closed, so we figured we would have come back during a warmer part of the year to check them out. Of course, the next time we visited El Malpais it happened to be during the first few months of the COVID pandemic, and by then all the caves had been closed due to that, so as I started planning this alternate trip I was happy to learn that El Malpais had just recently reopened two caves, after all of them being closed for over two years, and I knew that this was finally going to be our opportunity to check them out!

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Petroglyphs of the Painted Desert

Petrified Forest National Park | Alternate Plans: Back on the Four Corners Circuit
Tuesday – Wednesday, May 24-25, 2022

After our half-day Jeep tour in Canyon del Muerto on Monday, it was time to spend a pair of days hiking in the backcountry of Petrified Forest National Park, which has quickly become one of our favorite places to explore over the past couple of years. Since the park does not open until 8:00am, we were able to sleep in a little later this morning before leaving Holbrook and driving over to the entrance. Once we arrived, the first thing we did was stop in at the temporary Painted Desert Visitor Center and grabbed a backpacking wilderness permit, since it’s a great place to spend the night. Then we headed off in search of petroglyphs for the rest of the morning and early afternoon, and we found a lot!

Under The Ledge: Trails in the Land of Standing Rocks

Lost In The Maze II | Wednesday – Sunday, April 6-10, 2022

I can hardly believe it’s been just over four years since my last visit to the Land of Standing Rocks in Canyonlands National Park. It feels like it was just yesterday when Diane and I were heading out to The Maze over the long Memorial Day weekend each spring, and I’ve recently had a strong desire to return. After completing all the trails in The Needles and the Island in the Sky in 2018 and 2019 respectively, The Maze is the only remaining district of Canyonlands where I have not hiked every official trail on the map, so I figured it was time to head back and continue working on completing that personal goal. That’s part of the reason I hiked down the North Trail late last year. So back in early November I got on Rec.gov and booked couple campsites in the Land of Standing Rocks, two nights at Chimney Rock and two nights at The Wall, which seemed like a good place to basecamp for the trails that I wanted to hike this time. My friend Jerry, Jared and Dave were going to be joining me on this trip, but unfortunately Jerry got sick just before the trip started and was unable to make it this time.

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Tag: arches

Fiftymile Point to Davis Gulch & The Hole-in-the-Rock

The Green River: High Water in Labyrinth Canyon

Lava Tube Caving at El Malpais National Monument

Petroglyphs of the Painted Desert

Under The Ledge: Trails in the Land of Standing Rocks