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Chesler Park & Elephant Canyon

Friday – Monday, March 9-12, 2018

Late last year as I was thinking about planning some of my 2018 trips that would require advance permits, I decided it was finally time to backpack into Chesler Park in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. I’ve day-hiked into Chesler Park a number of times over the years from the four-wheel drive trailhead of the Joint Trail, but this time I wanted to backpack in so I could spend more time exploring the area and hopefully photographing this beautiful area at sunrise and sunset. Of course, planning a trip this far out in advance is like playing the lottery with the weather, especially in early to mid March on the Colorado Plateau, so as the dates of the trip approached I kept a close eye on the weather and hoped for good conditions.

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The Island In The Sky

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Since I already have plans and permits to spend time in The Needles and The Maze districts of Canyonlands National Park this spring, I thought it would be nice to spend a little quality time on the Island In The Sky, too. I recently realized that I haven’t done very much hiking in this part of the park yet and I really want to start changing that. This time I was not looking to hike all the way down to the White Rim and then climb back up, so I decided to start with the Neck Spring Trail and a few other shorter trails. I’ll definitely be coming back for some longer hikes later this year!

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Rambling Around Robbers Roost

Maze Memorial Weekend IV | Memorial Day Weekend
Friday – Monday, May 26-29, 2017

After spending the last three Memorial Day Weekends in and around The Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, this year we decided to skip visiting The Maze proper and stayed on top of The Orange Cliffs in Robbers Roost country. As usual, we left home after work on Friday evening and headed west into Utah. We stopped for a quick dinner and to fuel up the Jeep in Green River and then made our way to the Hans Flat Ranger Station to pickup our permit for the weekend. The wind was pretty brutal this evening and it really took a toll on my fuel mileage during the drive. There was a lot of sand blowing across the road to Hans Flat in places, but the sky and light was pretty nice during the drive. It looked like there was a good chance for one nice sunset before the clouds disappeared for the remainder of the weekend.

Island in the Sky

Christmas Weekend in Moab | Saturday. December 24, 2016

On Saturday morning, Diane and I left home and headed down to Moab so we could spend Christmas Day in Arches National Park like we do every year. Since the holiday fell on a weekend this year, we decided to spend the entire weekend around Moab starting with a visit to the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park on Saturday. While Diane has been to The Maze and Needles Districts a bunch of times with me, she had actually never visited the Island in the Sky, which happens to be the most accessible of the three. We would spend the day visiting most of the overlooks and going on a few short hikes.

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Mount Peale

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Since Jared and I had cancelled our plans to hike to the summit of Mount Peale (12,721) at the end of the previous day, we didn’t bother waking up until the sun was up this morning. I asked him if he had any suggestions for hikes near Moab and after some thought he suggested that we give Mount Peale a chance since we were right near it. I was feeling better after a good night’s sleep so I figured it was worth a try, though I kind of had a feeling that we would probably bail partway up and not make it to the summit.

Tag: canyonlands

Chesler Park & Elephant Canyon

The Island In The Sky

Rambling Around Robbers Roost

Island in the Sky

Mount Peale