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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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Sandstone Spine: Canyons of Comb Ridge

Friday – Sunday, March 13-15, 2026

Since Diane finished up her Radiation Therapy just about two weeks ago, we decided to get out on her first camping trip since she had surgery back at the beginning of October. We chose to spend the weekend mostly around Comb Ridge in Bears Ears National Monument so we could keep the hikes shorter and a bit easier for Diane if we needed to, but she really needed to get in some mileage and elevation during these hikes to help her get back into the swing of things since she is supposed to be hiking down into the Grand Canyon with me in just under a month. At the last minute I ended up taking off from work on Friday so we could have a little more time in the outdoors together and we left home on Friday morning and headed down to Comb Wash where we found a nice campsite for the rest of the weekend. These are some photos from our weekend around the Sandstone Spine.

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The Twists and Turns of Salt Creek Canyon

Canyonlands National Park | Thursday – Monday, April 4-8, 2024

After a rugged hike around Navajo Mountain last year, Dave, Jared and I decided to return to a very familiar place in Canyonlands National Park for our annual spring backpacking trip this year as we started making plans to continue exploring the twists and turns of Salt Creek Canyon a few months ago. Although we have all hiked into Salt Creek many times over the years, I hadn’t been back to the middle section of the canyon since our first hike down the length of the canyon just about ten years ago, and I was looking forward to returning! I left from work on Thursday afternoon and made my way to Indian Creek Country for the evening where I found a campsite and watched a colorful sunset on the surrounding cliffs while waiting for Dave and Jared to arrive.

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Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 3

Thursday – Sunday, March 25-28, 2021

This weekend Jerry and I were planning to go on a three-day backpacking trip in Capitol Reef National Park, but as the weekend got closer the weather forecast was not looking good. The forecast was calling for much cooler temperatures with rain and snow which would not have been good for the narrow water-filled canyon we wanted to hike, so it looked like we would be changing our plans. Instead, we decided to head further south to Comb Ridge and Cedar Mesa since we knew we would be able to work around the weather there no matter what it did. I left after work on Friday afternoon and headed south to meet up with Jerry. After getting stuck in traffic for a while just before entering Moab, I drove through some pretty strong winds with snow from about Monticello to Blanding. I met Jerry at the Butler Wash Ruins just after sunset and we decided to camp along Comb Wash, just in case there was a lot of precipitation overnight and the roads got muddy. As predicted, there was more rain and snow overnight so on Friday we stuck to the lower elevations and did a little hiking on Comb Ridge. Later in the day things had started to dry out so we headed up onto Cedar Mesa for the rest of the weekend. Here are some photos from our weekend spent below the Bears Ears.

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Across the King Bench: Horse Canyon to The Gulch

Canyons of the Escalante | Friday – Saturday, February 26-27, 2021

This weekend I met up with my friends Dennis and Chris inside of the Circle Cliffs west of the Waterpocket Fold so we could explore a few more Canyons of the Escalante. Over the winter Dennis and I had spoken about getting together for a hike sometime this spring since it had been a while, and he told me about his plans to hike over into The Gulch from Horse Canyon using an old stock trail to get up onto the King Bench. This sounded like a great idea to me, especially since I had never driven the road into Horse Canyon before since it used to be an ‘Administrative Road’ in the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, so we made plans to meet up the last weekend of February for the hike.

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The Paria Plateau: Returning to the Sand Hills

Sandstone Spine: Canyons of Comb Ridge

The Twists and Turns of Salt Creek Canyon

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 3

Across the King Bench: Horse Canyon to The Gulch