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The Kaibab Plateau: Cape Final to Point Sublime

Fall Colors along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
Saturday – Monday, September 28-30, 2024

After spending the preceding week on an amazing rafting trip through the Canyon of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument, our group got off the river in the early afternoon on Friday and I made it home a few hours after that. Then I spent the rest of the evening unloading all my river gear and packing up my car-camping gear into the Jeep so I could leave on Saturday morning to spend a full week along the Arizona Strip and North Rim of the Grand Canyon with my friend Jared. Although we typically spend this first week in October wandering around Southern Utah, every so often we like to change it up and venture a little further south into Arizona. Thankfully we decided to begin our trip with a couple days on the Kaibab Plateau because it happened to be very warm all over the southwest this week and at least it was a little bit cooler up at these higher elevations. Plus, we got really lucky with the timing of our trip and managed to see the peak of the fall colors on display while we were up on the Kaibab Plateau, too!

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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.

The Land In-Between: Around The Needles

Friday – Monday, January 14-17, 2022

Well here it is, my first Trip Report of 2022! This wasn’t originally supposed to be my first trip of 2022, but we ended up cancelling our plans over New Years Day weekend because of the weather and then I decided to take last weekend off, too. So now it’s time to get back at it again, and what better way to start off the year then by spending a three-day weekend exploring one of my absolute favorite places on the Colorado Plateau– The Needles! As usual, I left after work on Friday afternoon and made my way down to The Needles and found a place to camp along the Lockhart Basin Road. Then I spent the rest of the weekend exploring the Land In Between the more popular trails in the park to see what I could find along the way and ended up hiking over 36 miles. It felt good to put in some higher miles this weekend since I’ve been taking it easier after my incident in November.

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West Side Wandering: Fingers of Salt Creek Canyon

Thursday – Sunday, March 12-15, 2020

This year for our annual early season backpacking trip to The Needles we returned to one of my favorite places on the Colorado Plateau- Salt Creek Canyon. Although I have spent a lot of time in this canyon over the years, Diane had never been here before, so I was looking forward to showing her around on her first visit and searching for new traces of the ancient ones that called this canyon home. Instead of it being just the two of us, this time we also invited our friend Jerry along since I know he’s always up for a nice walk through Salt Creek Canyon. We planned to meet up with him on Friday morning at the Visitor Center since I had to stop there to pick up the permit that I had reserved online four months in advance.

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Lost Canyon Loop

Thursday – Sunday, March 14-17, 2019

Last March Diane and I had such a nice time backpacking through Chesler Park and Elephant Canyon in Canyonlands National Park on our first backpacking trip of the season, that we decided to head back to The Needles for another early season backpacking trip this year, too! I think this might become one of our new annual traditions, at least for a couple of years! The Needles is a great place to get back into backpacking mode after taking a few months off, so at the end of last year I reserved a couple of campsites during the first full weekend that the park was back open and operational again in the middle of March for our trip. This year we decided to hike a loop through Lost Canyon and Big Spring Canyon because it had been almost seven years since the last time I hiked through Lost Canyon and I wanted to get back to explore it more thoroughly.

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Tag: big spring canyon

The Kaibab Plateau: Cape Final to Point Sublime

Drifting Around Indian Creek Country III

The Land In-Between: Around The Needles

West Side Wandering: Fingers of Salt Creek Canyon

Lost Canyon Loop