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Easter Weekend Around the Paria PlateauEaster Weekend Around the Paria Plateau

Easter Weekend Around the Paria Plateau

Easter Weekend | Saturday & Sunday, March 26-27, 2016

After spending Friday wandering around Coyote Buttes North, I returned to my camp near the Utah-Arizona state line in Coyote Valley to spend another night there. I slept in a little later on Saturday morning and didn’t crawl out of my tent until the sun came up. I would be spending the rest of the weekend circumnavigating the Paria Plateau and exploring some new areas along the way. After packing up camp, I returned north to the Buckskin Gulch Trailhead and hiked down the wash to explore the edge of the West Clark Bench (The Dive). Diane and I had explored part of this area on a hike from Wire Pass at the end of 2014 and I wanted to check out some more of the area this morning.

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Coyote Buttes North 2016Coyote Buttes North 2016

Coyote Buttes North 2016

Friday, March 25, 2016

Earlier this year I realized that it had been a while since the last time I visited Coyote Buttes North, so I tried to get another permit for this spring and managed to obtain one for today. Little did I know at the time that I would be buying a new Jeep the weekend before this trip and it would make for a nice first road trip in the new vehicle. Besides getting to spend the long weekend thoroughly testing out my new Jeep on the highway and offroad, I would spend much of the day revisiting my favorite places in Coyote Buttes North, plus I’d spend some time exploring a few of the areas I had not been to before. By the end of the day I had hiked about 15 miles total and enjoyed every second of it!

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Fresh Snow & Fog at the Colorado National MonumentFresh Snow & Fog

Fresh Snow & Fog at the Colorado National Monument

Colorado National Monument | Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Visiting the Colorado National Monument in the winter with a fresh coat of snow and canyons filled with fog is a magical experience that doesn’t happen too often. But that’s exactly what I woke up to this morning! I took a detour on my way to work so I could spend a little time photographing the sunrise in these conditions and I’m glad that I did since it turned out to be one of the more spectacular sunrises I’ve witnessed in the Monument. Enjoy the photos!

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Ute Canyon Dinosaur TracksUte Canyon Dinosaur Tracks

Ute Canyon Dinosaur Tracks

Friday & Saturday, November 13-14, 2015

Our objective on Saturday was to go for a hike in the Colorado National Monument in search of a couple of small dinosaur tracks hidden on a large boulder in Ute Canyon. We did manage to find the tracks we were looking for, but before we get into that part of the trip report here are a couple of photos I took on Friday evening along the rim of Monument Canyon in the west side of the Monument.

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Big Blue CreekBig Blue Creek

Big Blue Creek

Labor Day Weekend | Saturday – Monday, September 5-7, 2015

This year for the long Labor Day weekend I wanted to go on another backpacking trip into the Uncompahgre Wilderness of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, but I also wanted to go somewhere that was unlikely to be crowded since this is probably one of the busiest camping weekends of the year. After some research I selected the Big Blue Creek drainage as our destination. Not only was there very little information about this area online and in guides, which hopefully meant it wouldn’t be very crowded, but I was also hoping to photograph the north face of Uncompahgre Peak (14,309) at sunrise since I hadn’t seen too many photos of this massive mountain from that side. I had originally thought about connecting the Fall Creek and Failes Creek trails to create a big loop hike but changed that idea so that I would be able to spend two mornings photographing Uncompahgre Peak to help improve my chances of catching a great sunrise.

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