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Tag: ccc

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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Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain Fire Lookout

Formerly the Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout | Saturday & Sunday, January 29-30, 2022

Over the past couple of years I have been trying to visit at least one new Fire Lookout each year, so I thought I would get an early start this year when I booked a night in the Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout near Idaho Springs this past October. This unique structure was constructed of native granite by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1940’s and is situated on top of Squaw Mountain at about 11,500 feet. The cab measures 14 X 14 feet, is completely lined by windows on each side and is surrounded by a catwalk, which all sits on top of the one story stone base. Back in December Squaw Mountain was officially renamed to Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain (pronounced mess-taw-HAY) by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, so now the name of the lookout has also changed to match. I had actually wanted to book a night at this fire lookout for the past two years but it has been closed through the end of 2021 due to COVID, so when I noticed they had finally started accepting reservations again for 2022 I quickly booked a night over the last weekend in January!

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