// Adventures and Photography from the Colorado Plateau, Rocky Mountains & Beyond
Saturday & Sunday, December 14-15, 2024
Well, it’s that time of the year when the crowds have finally started to thin and I am ready to begin spending more time exploring the lands surrounding Moab until they start to return again later in February. This weekend I headed over toward Moab early on Saturday morning so I could hike with a friend and visit a bunch of rock art sites that were all new to me before returning home on Sunday afternoon. These are some photos of what we saw.
1 CommentFriday – Sunday, December 6-8, 2024
Things didn’t quite go as I had planned this weekend. I was originally planning to spend the weekend along the western end of the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park and had reserved campsites for both Friday and Saturday nights. However, when I arrived at the top of the Mineral Bottom switchbacks on Friday afternoon I found that they were covered with ice and snow and I really wasn’t feeling like sliding down the road, so I called an audible and headed down to Indian Creek Country and The Needles instead. After making my way over to the Lockhart Basin Road and finding a campsite for the weekend, I then spent the rest of the weekend hiking some new canyons, driving a few new backroads and revisiting some rock art sites that I’ve wanted to re-photograph or that I hadn’t been back to in over a decade. Here are some photos from this unplanned weekend.
Leave a CommentFriday – Sunday, November 1-3, 2024
I started this weekend trip off with two main goals in mind as I headed west into Utah on Friday. The first one was to drive The V Road in the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument before it’s closed to motorized vehicles in December, and the second one was to finally take a ride on the Charles Hall Ferry across Lake Powell while it’s open and there is still enough water for it to be in operation. Although these two goals might seem like they can’t possibly be connected in any way, there is a historic route which was known as the Halls Wagon Road, Hall Road or Halls Trail, that went from Escalante to Halls Crossing and does kind of tie these two areas together. So even though I never followed any part of the actual Halls Wagon Road on this particular trip, I did roughly parallel the route on modern day roads the entire way. Plus, I have already hiked a couple sections of the historic route including Silver Falls Creek, Muley Twist Canyon and Halls Creek, and I hope to do more sections in the future. I had all of this information on my mind as I left from work on Friday and made my way over to the Escalante River Country near Harris Wash.
Leave a CommentSauntering Through The Swell | Friday – Sunday, October 25-27, 2024
This weekend I took it pretty easy and headed out into the San Rafael Swell so I could search for some new rock art and revisit some sites that I hadn’t been back to in over a decade! I was hoping that my friend Jared would be able to join me on this trip, but unfortunately he was unable to make it this time, so I was on my own. For the most part I found everything I was looking for and the weather and temperature was very nice out, although it was quite a bit more humid than I would have liked, so I ended up having a very nice time camping, hiking and Jeeping around the Swell this weekend. These are some photos of what I saw.
Leave a CommentFloating Across Dinosaur National Monument: Gates of Lodore to Split Mountain
Monday – Friday, September 23-27, 2024 | High CFS: 1,800 – Low CFS: 911
After finally getting the opportunity to float through Yampa Canyon at very high water last spring in Dinosaur National Monument, Jackson and I turned our attention to the Canyon of Lodore this year as we continue to work our way through more sections of the Green and Colorado Rivers on the Colorado Plateau. Although I initially had some issues getting us a permit earlier in the year, Jackson managed to come through and secured us a Low-Use Season permit for late September, which was the time of the year we had hoped to take on this trip down the Green River. While many parties seem to raft this stretch of the river in four days, we scheduled a five-day trip so we could take our time and really enjoy getting to know the canyon. After inviting our usual river friends along, we ended up with most of the same people who were with us on the Yampa River last year with just a few additions and subtractions, which would be perfect since we had such a great time together on that trip.
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