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The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition: 250 Years Later

Pageant in the Wilderness: Following in the Footsteps of Friars Dominguez & Escalante
Saturday – Monday, September 19-21, 2026 (August 27 – September 17, 1776)

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition through the southwest and I wanted to do a little something special to celebrate the semiquincentennial of this monumental undertaking in my own little way. Although I would have liked to have been able to follow in the footsteps of Dominguez & Escalante (D&E) for the entirety of their route through New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, I just don’t have that kind of free time available to me right now and decided it would be nice to just concentrate on the section of their route that is closest to my home. I planned to pick up their route at the Uncompahgre River in Montrose and then follow in their footsteps as closely as I could over the Grand Mesa and Roan Plateau to the White River, and then finally to the Green River in the Uinta Basin in Utah. I figured that I should be able to cover this part of their route in a weekend, but still, even with this shorter route a weekend would probably be too short for me to see it all and I would be limited on the amount of hiking I would be able to do along the way, sticking mostly to roads that roughly follow their original route.

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Rock Art of Nine Mile Canyon 2026

Saturday & Sunday, February 21-22, 2026

Diane is very glad to almost be done with her Radiation Therapy, and she only has four treatments left this upcoming week, so we were looking for somewhere to get outside this weekend while still being able to take it easy. We decided that searching for rock art in Nine Mile Canyon would be a perfect activity for us and headed up there for our annual pilgrimage. We had actually been thinking about driving up to Nine Mile Canyon the previous weekend for my birthday, but I ended up staying home to work on my 4Runner so that it would be ready for a trip into The Maze later this month. We left home early on Saturday morning and spent the rest of the weekend revisiting sites in the canyon and finding some new ones along the way, too. Although it had snowed in the Grand Valley and all across Southern Utah on Friday, the storm seemed to have mostly missed Price and the surrounding area, so there was only a thin layer of snow on the ground higher up in the canyon and it was pretty dry the lower we went. These are some photos of what we saw this weekend.

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Kodels Canyon & Devils Canyon Rims

Colorado National Monument | Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Last week when I was hiking up the Fruita Dugway in the Colorado National Monument, I noticed a bench just above Kodels Canyon and below Kodels Point that looked like it might be an interesting place to hike, and since I’m always looking for new places to explore close to home I decided to check it out after work today. I started out by hiking up the Fruita Dugway from the Historic Trails Viewpoint along Rim Rock Drive and then left the trail to make my way around the head of Kodels Canyon and across the bench to the rim of Devils Canyon where there was a pretty nice view. All in all, this turned out to be a fun off-trail hike through new terrain and was a good way to spend a few hours after work today.

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Fruita Dugway: Kodels Canyon to the Black Ridge Trail

Heart of the World | Wednesday, November 19, 2025

I was hoping to get out hiking at least once between storm systems this week and finally made a last minute decision to head out to hike up the Fruita Dugway right after work today. Although this may not be an ‘official’ trail within the Colorado National Monument, I still wanted to include it in my Heart of the World project because not only is it a historic route through the area, it’s also probably my favorite hike in all of the Monument. I started the hike from the Kodels Canyon Trailhead, climbed up to the junction with the Black Ridge Trail and then returned mostly the same way. Early on the hike was a bit hot and humid while I was in the sun, but it got a bit chilly when the clouds started to block out the sun. Here are a few photos from my evening hike up and down the Fruita Dugway.

Old Gordon Trail: Historic Toll Road to Glade Park

Heart of the World | Thursday, November 6, 2025

As it’s getting closer to the end of the year and I’m getting very close to completing all of the trails for my Heart of the World project in the Colorado National Monument, I thought today would be a good day to hike the Old Gordon Trail right after work. While this has never really been one of my favorite trails in the Monument, which is probably why I haven’t hiked the entire trail since 2011, that’s part of the reason I started this project and I was a little interested in seeing the trail again with fresh eyes since it’s been so long. After work I headed over to the Devils Kitchen Trailhead and started hiking up the Old Gordon Trail which follows the route of a historic toll road built by John Gordon in the 1880’s that was used to move stock and timber between Glade Park and the Grand Valley. The temperature out this afternoon was mostly comfortable and nice, but it was a bit breezy at times which made it feel cold- but not quite cold enough for me to want to put on a jacket. The round-trip hike was 7.5 miles with about 1700 feet of elevation gain which I finished up in just about three hours.

Tag: book cliffs

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition: 250 Years Later

Rock Art of Nine Mile Canyon 2026

Kodels Canyon & Devils Canyon Rims

Fruita Dugway: Kodels Canyon to the Black Ridge Trail

Old Gordon Trail: Historic Toll Road to Glade Park