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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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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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Ruby – Horsethief Canyons of the Colorado River

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Average CFS: 3,390
Sunday – Tuesday, August 13-15, 2023

After having a great season on the rivers this spring, I realized that I had not been on a float trip through Ruby – Horsethief since 2016 and was long overdue for a return, so Jackson and I planned a late summer trip down this local stretch of the Colorado River for late August and were able to secure camping permits for two nights. Besides inviting a couple of close friends along, Diane was also going to be joining us on this trip with her Stand-Up Paddleboard, and she was looking forward to getting back on the river when the water was not super high, since neither of us had much fun that day! We all met up at the Loma Boat Ramp on Sunday morning and got the boats rigged while the shuttle was run and then were on the river around 10:30am. It was pretty warm out already and was going to end up being a pretty hot trip!

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Little Yampa Canyon: South Beach to Duffy Mountain

Floating the Yampa River Through Duffy Mountain | Average CFS: 14,140
Saturday & Sunday, May 20-21, 2023

With the big snowpack in the mountains of Colorado this year I decided to take a little break from hiking and backpacking during the months of May and June so that I could try to get out onto the rivers as much as possible this season. This weekend Jackson and I were looking to get out on an overnight trip and were initially thinking about trying to catch some of the ephemeral desert rivers in Utah, but that wouldn’t logistically work out for us this weekend and we turned our attention back to the Yampa River in Colorado’s Great Northwest. After looking over maps of the area we settled on trying out a section of the Yampa that is just west of Craig and known as Little Yampa Canyon or Duffy Canyon. This 33 mile stretch of the Yampa River carves it’s way through Duffy Mountain and is all flat water. Since we were unfamiliar with this section of the river we were a little concerned that it’s easy nature might change at the high water levels it was currently seeing, but we decided to check it out anyway.

Yampa Canyon: The Yampa River in Dinosaurland

Floating Across Dinosaur National Monument | Friday – Tuesday, May 5-9, 2023

For years, Jackson and I have wanted to float the lower section of the wild and scenic Yampa River that carves its way through Dinosaur National Monument, so we have been entering the lottery each winter for a chance to obtain that hard-to-get permit hoping that maybe we would eventually get lucky. This year after we were unsuccessful in the lottery yet again, we decided it was time to actively try harder to get a permit and Jackson was able to secure a Low-Use Season permit for early May just a few days before the High-Use season would begin. This was actually great timing for me since I have been spending the first weekend of May in Dinosaurland these past couple of years and now I could look forward to spending that same timeframe floating across Dinosaur National Monument on the Yampa River this year!

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The Twists and Turns of Salt Creek Canyon

The Grandest of Gulches: Back Into Lower Grand Gulch

Ruby – Horsethief Canyons of the Colorado River

Little Yampa Canyon: South Beach to Duffy Mountain

Yampa Canyon: The Yampa River in Dinosaurland