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Ferry Swale to Wiregrass Canyon and the White Rocks

Friday – Saturday, May 8-9, 2026

After spending the previous week at the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs and Grand Staircase in Kanab, I left right after the conference wrapped up on Friday afternoon and drove east to Page where I grabbed an early dinner in town. Then I topped off my gas tank and then headed west again to explore a few roads in the Ferry Swale as I made my way over to the trailhead for Wiregrass Canyon in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area so I could go on a short evening hike when the temperature started to cool down. Initially, I drove into the Ferry Swale because I was thinking about either hiking to the Thousand Pockets or Dominguez Pass, but it was just too hot for me to want to do any open desert hiking this afternoon, so instead I just kept driving until the road ended at the Lees Ferry Overlook above Paria Canyon and I took in the views from there.

Return to Bryce Canyon National Park & Red Canyon

Edges of the Paunsaugunt Plateau | Saturday – Tuesday, November 8-11, 2025

Earlier in the year, well before she even knew she had a meningioma and would need brain surgery in October, Diane told me that she wanted to go to Bryce Canyon National Park sometime this year because she had never been there before and it was the only National Park in Utah that she hadn’t been to yet, so I planned a trip for us to visit the park over the Veterans Day holiday and weekend in early November. Of course, after her surgery in early October and the rough recovery afterwards, I wasn’t sure if we were still going to be able to go on this trip, but as the dates got closer and she continued to slowly get better every day and was no longer under any restrictions, we decided to still go, even if she would only able to visit the overlooks from the rim. Although I had initially planned to go on some longer hikes when I started making plans for this trip earlier in the year, I had no problems toning down those plans so we could experience the park together now. I thought this extended weekend might be a nice getaway for Diane who has spend most of the last month either in the hospital or at home.

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Halls Wagon Road to Halls Crossing, More or Less…

Friday – 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.

Kodachrome Flat: Land of Sand Pipes & Chimneys

Veterans Day Weekend at Kodachrome Basin State Park
Thursday – Sunday, November 9-12, 2023

Kodachrome Basin State Park is a relatively small park located in Southern Utah that is nestled into the rugged canyon country between the White Cliffs and the Pink Cliffs of the Grand Staircase and is best known for the sixty-seven towering sand pipes that dominate the desert landscape. These sedimentary pipes are believed to be found nowhere else on earth and while there are several theories that have been proposed to try to explain their formation, geologists are still unsure of the exact origin of these unusual sand spires. Over the years I have driven right past the entrance to Kodachrome Basin on numerous occasions as I have driven down the Cottonwood Road while exploring the Grand – Staircase Escalate National Monument, which practically surrounds this small reserve, and in all that time I have never stopped to check it out. This holiday weekend I finally planned to change all that by spending some quality time hiking and exploring the interesting landscape of Kodachrome Flat.

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Under the Pink Cliffs: Trails of the Bryce Amphitheater

Bryce Canyon National Park | Thursday – Sunday, December 1-4, 2022

Of Utah’s ‘Mighty Five’ National Parks, Bryce Canyon National Park is the only one that I have not done any ‘real’ hiking in before. Previously, my only visit to the park was over ten years ago and during that brief visit I only went on short walks to most of the overlooks along the rim. I was hoping to change that this year, so I made it my goal to plan an extended weekend to Bryce to hike all of the trails within and around the Bryce Amphitheater this winter. I figured that early December would be a good time to go to avoid the crowds and maybe catch a little snow on the hoodoos, too.

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Tag: hoodoos

Ferry Swale to Wiregrass Canyon and the White Rocks

Return to Bryce Canyon National Park & Red Canyon

Halls Wagon Road to Halls Crossing, More or Less…

Kodachrome Flat: Land of Sand Pipes & Chimneys

Under the Pink Cliffs: Trails of the Bryce Amphitheater