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Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 12

Friday – Sunday, May 10-12 & 17-19, 2024

After leaving the UGIC Conference on Friday afternoon I was originally planning to spend the rest of the weekend exploring the nearby Book Cliffs and Tavaputs Plateau, but with all the rain and snow the area had received this week, and with even more predicted over the next couple of days, I figured that was probably not a great place to be right now. Although I did have backup plans for the San Rafael Swell in case of bad weather, after saying goodbye to Moab on Thursday I was feeling the need to get out into a landscape that I have a more personal connection with and feel at home in so I could grieve alone, so I decided to head down to Cedar Mesa, even if it meant a longer drive out of the way. Since I was leaving from Price, this meant I could avoid the traffic in Moab and drive to Cedar Mesa through Hanksville, which is a route I don’t drive very often since it usually doesn’t make much sense for me to go that way. After stopping for an early dinner in Hanksville, I followed North Wash and White Canyon to Cedar Mesa and went straight to the Todie Canyon Trailhead so I could walk the rim at sunset.

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Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country

Saturday & Sunday, April 27-28, 2024

This weekend Diane and I headed down to the edges of Bears Ears National Monument so we could hike and search for rock art and ruins in some of the canyons along the borderlands of the monument. We were originally planning to leave after work on Friday, but rain was predicted for the area overnight and into the early morning, so instead we decided to leave early on Saturday morning and timed it so we would arrive after the weather was supposed to be over leaving cooler temperatures and partly cloudy skies behind. Our timing worked out perfectly! Although we would see a lot of interesting and unusual rock art this weekend, much of it was hard to see and photograph, so I’ll just share some of the better photos below.

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The Grandest of Gulches: Back Into Lower Grand Gulch

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 11 | Thursday – Sunday, March 21-24, 2024

This week Diane and I took Thursday and Friday off from work so we could meet up with our friend Jared and spend a couple of days backpacking into lower Grand Gulch within the Bears Ears National Monument. While this would be Diane’s first time hiking into this part of Grand Gulch, Jared and I had hiked here about nine years ago and I was really looking forward to the return visit. From the very start of the hike we could tell there was a lot of water in the canyon from recent storms and that it might have even flash flooded recently, but all that water also created a lot of quicksand and mud in the wash that significantly slowed down our progress and forced us to follow brushy deer trails across the benches in many places. The weather during the first three days of our hike was great and the nights even stayed pretty warm, we only encountered wet weather during our final night in the canyon and during the hike back out of Collins Canyon. Here are some photos taken during our four days in Grand Gulch.

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Drifting Around Indian Creek Country III

Friday – Sunday, January 26-28, 2024

January has kind of been off to a rough start for me and I was really feeling the need to get away for the weekend alone and in a place that I am familiar with and comfortable in; a place that feels like home. So I decided to spend the weekend hiking and camping in Indian Creek Country, which has been one of my favorite places to explore the past couple of years, especially in the winter when there aren’t many other people around. Anyways, if you saw my post from earlier this month, you might have noticed that my Jeep has been out of commission for a few weeks by now, and the good news is that I finally got it back from being repaired earlier this week. One of the camshafts in the engine needed to be replaced, which had been on backorder for a little while, and thankfully the powertrain of my Jeep was still just barely under warranty. Since I had already paid for a rental car through this upcoming Monday, I figured I would leave the Jeep home and take the rental Ford Explorer out this weekend instead. I left from work on Friday afternoon and made my way south through Moab and down the Indian Creek Corridor, where I found a campsite along the road to Lockhart Basin just after sunset. I then spent the remainder of the weekend just wandering around the canyon country to see what I would find along the way. Below are some photos from my wanderings this weekend.

Below the Bears Ears: Thanksgiving Weekend 2023

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 10 | Thursday – Sunday, November 23-26, 2023

This year for the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend I returned Below the Bears Ears to the canyons of Cedar Mesa like I typically do at this time of the year, so I could explore some new places and maybe revisit some old ones along the way. When I left home early on Thursday morning the weather forecast was not looking that great for Friday into Saturday with our first real winter storm on the way, but I wasn’t too concerned about it since I had plenty of backup hikes in mind that I could go on regardless of what the weather had in store. That turned out to be a good thing since the higher elevations of Cedar Mesas did end up getting some snow and I had to alter my original plans a bit so I could hike into canyons at lower elevations. While Diane would usually join me on this annual trip, this year she was scheduled to work part of the weekend and was unfortunately unable to come with, so I would be flying solo this time.

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Tag: bears ears national monument

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 12

Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country

The Grandest of Gulches: Back Into Lower Grand Gulch

Drifting Around Indian Creek Country III

Below the Bears Ears: Thanksgiving Weekend 2023