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Tag: historic cabin

Canyons of the Paria: Lick Wash to Park WashCanyons of the Paria: Lick Wash to Park Wash

Canyons of the Paria: Lick Wash to Park Wash

Southern Utah Wanderings | Monday & Tuesday, October 5-6, 2020

After completing our loop through the Upper Paria River and Sheep Creek in the afternoon, we picked up my Jeep from near Dunham Spring and then drove into Tropic for dinner and fuel. We planned to hike Lick Wash in the morning since we wanted to make Tuesday an easier day, so after finishing up in Tropic we headed down the Skutumpah Road to find somewhere to camp closer to the trailhead. The first part of the Skutumpah Road was pretty washboarded with some deep potholes full of ‘moon dust‘ but once we got past the trailhead for Bull Valley Gorge (which has a brand new concrete bridge over the canyon) the road conditions were greatly improved and we were able to make better time. Both of us were both surprised to see a couple of low clearance sedans on the road and wondered how they made it through some of the rougher sections?

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Little Death Hollow & Wolverine CanyonLittle Death Hollow & Wolverine Canyon

Little Death Hollow & Wolverine Canyon

Canyons of the Escalante | Southern Utah Wanderings in a Sandstone Wilderness
Thursday & Friday, October 3-4, 2019

After an easier day exploring the colorful sandstone around Big Horn Canyon on Wednesday, it was time for our next overnight backpacking loop hike and this was one that I was pretty excited for since I’ve wanted to hike through Little Death Hollow for a long time! I slept in until just after sunrise on Thursday morning but I heard Jared get up before sunrise to wander around camp for a few photos. Once the sun was up we took our time taking down camp and packing our backpacks for the overnight hike. Since we weren’t sure if there was going to be water in Horse Canyon with the dry summer we’ve had, we decided it would probably be a good idea to carry all the water we would need for the loop, so I ended up taking 4 liters to be on the safe side. Then we drove the short distance over to the Little Death Hollow Trailhead and were on the trail shortly before 10:00am.

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River Flowing from the Sunrise: The San Juan RiverRiver Flowing from the Sunrise: The San Juan

River Flowing from the Sunrise: The San Juan River

Friday – Monday, May 10-13, 2019

Over the years I have floated the San Juan River between Sand Island and Mexican Hat a couple of times with a small group of friends and we almost always have had a great time on this stretch of the river. I say ‘almost always‘ because the temperature was way too hot out during our last trip in 2017 and the water was moving very fast which turned out to be a bad combination for us. We ended up cutting that trip a day short and heading home early. After taking last year off for a Labyrinth Canyon trip, we decided to get a permit for the San Juan again this year to make up for that last trip. This year I was hoping for much better weather since we were going in May again, but I was still a little worried when we drove down to Bluff on Friday afternoon through rain storms and cold temperatures even though the forecast for the rest of the weekend was looking good. I certainly had my fingers crossed and hoped that the rainbow I saw as we drove over White Mesa was a good sign! And for anyone wondering, River Flowing from the Sunrise is a translation of the Ute name for the San Juan River, and I think it’s a pretty fitting one.

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Return to DinosaurlandReturn to Dinosaurland

Return to Dinosaurland

Friday – Sunday, May 3-5, 2019

Since we spent the end of last week at the very southern end of the Colorado Plateau on our way to Phoenix for a concert, we decided to head north this weekend to the very northern end so we could revisit Dinosaur National Monument and the surrounding area since we had a great time there over Memorial Day weekend last year. And even though Harpers Corner Road in Colorado had just finally opened up a few days before our trip, we decided to minimize our driving and just stick to exploring the Utah side of Dinosaur this time. We left after work on Friday afternoon, stopped for a quick dinner in Fruita, and then drove north through the Book Cliffs and Cañon Pintado towards the eastern end of the Monument in Utah to find a place to camp just outside the park. We found a nice spot just after sunset, quickly setup our tent and then got into our sleeping bags so we could get an early start on Saturday morning.

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Dinosaur Memorial WeekendDinosaur Memorial Weekend

Dinosaur Memorial Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend | Thursday – Monday, May 24-28, 2018

After four years of going on our annual Maze Memorial Weekend trip we decided it was time to move that trip up into early April for cooler temperatures and less bugs, which meant that we needed to find somewhere else to explore over the Memorial Day weekend this year.  After some thought we settled on visiting Dinosaur National Monument because we hoped it would be a little cooler at this time of the year and I felt it was time to finally start getting to know this area of Utah and Colorado a little more intimately. Plus, there are a lot of places around Dinosaur that I’ve wanted to revisit and I was pretty sure that the park wouldn’t be too busy away from the main Dinosaur Bone Quarry. Little did we know that this weekend was going to be pretty warm all over the Colorado Plateau!

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