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Little Grand Canyon

San Rafael River Gorge | Friday & Saturday, March 31 – April 1, 2017

Visiting the Little Grand Canyon in the heart of the northern San Rafael Swell has been something I have wanted to do for a long time. I’ve looked down into the gorge from the edge of The Wedge may times before and thought to myself that I needed to get down there. I had always dismissed going there on a day-hike because of it’s length and figured I would be able to catch the San Rafael River at the right time so I could take my inflatable kayak through the canyon. That has obviously never happened yet which is why I put this trip off for so long. Since there is a long local hike near my home that I’ve been thinking about doing this spring, I thought that hiking the Little Grand Canyon would be a good test to see if I was going to be up for it or not, so I finally went for it.

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A Swell Birthday Weekend

Saturday & Sunday, February 11-12, 2017

Since Saturday was my birthday, we decided to spend the weekend in the San Rafael Swell based out of Green River to celebrate. We ended up visiting a bunch of rock art sites that I hadn’t been to in a while and that Diane had never been to (much like our day trip to Moab a few weeks ago), but we also found a couple of new sites. I had hoped to visit more new sites on this trip, but the roads in those areas were still pretty muddy, so we stuck to the drier areas of the Swell along the San Rafael Reef. Of course, I made sure to have a birthday burger from Ray’s on Saturday evening! Here are plenty of photos from the weekend…

San Rafael Desert

Monday, January 2, 2017

Since I stayed close to home the past two days, I decided that wanted to venture over the state line into Utah today, but I still didn’t want to travel too far. It’s a pretty short and easy drive from Grand Junction to Green River, so I thought I’d head south from there on the Green River Road to revisit some sites I haven’t been to in many years and also try to stop at a few new ones. I contacted Marty on Saturday evening to see if he was free, and then we made plans to meet in Green River at 7:30 this morning. As I was getting close to Green River on I-70 I could see that the Gunnison Valley was filled with a thick fog and I thought that this might make things interesting for us. After meeting up with Marty and topping off my fuel tank we headed south into the fog on the Green River Road.

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Maze Memorial Weekend III

The Doll House | Memorial Day Weekend
Thursday – Monday, May 26-30, 2016

While crowds of people were lined up to get into Arches National Park and Island in the Sky this holiday weekend, Diane and I were back in The Maze District of Canyonlands National Park where we would only see a couple other people the entire time. This is why Diane and I have kept coming back back here for the past three years over Memorial Day weekend. Make sure to check out our previous trip reports from 2014 and 2015. This year we invited our friends Marty and Dave along to spend a few days down in The Doll House and the Land of Standing Rocks. It has been a few years since I last visited this area and I was looking forward to getting back and actually spending a few nights in The Doll House.

Little Wild Horse Canyon & Bell Canyon

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Years ago I tried hiking into Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon, which are slot canyons that cut through the San Rafael Reef near Goblin Valley State Park, but I was chased away by thunderstorms that day and have never returned to try again. Since that time the popularity of these slot canyons have exploded, which is part of the reason I had never bothered to return. I finally decided that it was time to head back this weekend to hike these San Rafael Swell classics. I was hoping that we wouldn’t run into the large crowds that these canyons attract since it’s the middle of winter, and we didn’t. We would only pass one single hiker during our entire hike and that happened on the old road used to connect the two canyons together to form a loop.