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Tag: kane gulch ranger station

Bears Ears National Monument

President’s Day Weekend | Saturday – Monday, February 18-20, 2017

This holiday weekend was supposed to be our first camping trip of the year, but the wet weather forecast made me rethink those plans at the last minute. Throughout the prior week and up until Friday the forecast was calling for 90-100% chance of rain and snow on Cedar Mesa and the surrounding area for Saturday and Sunday. I was about to cancel the trip altogether and stay home, but I decided to check hotel rates in Blanding on Friday afternoon and found a King Suite at the Rodeway Inn for $36 a night. At that price I couldn’t pass it up and figured that even if the weather didn’t cooperate with us, at least we’d have a nice getaway for the long weekend that wouldn’t cost very much. I am glad we still went because we had an awesome time and the weather really didn’t interfere too much.

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Owl & Fish Creek Canyons

Friday – Sunday, April 29 – May 1, 2016

This weekend Diane and I had taken Friday off work so we could head down to Cedar Mesa on a three-day backpacking trip into Fish Creek Canyon and Owl Creek Canyon. We had originally planned on driving down Thursday evening after work, but with rainy weather in the forecast we decided to stay home Thursday night and left very early on Friday morning. We passed through Moab just in time to stop for breakfast at the Moab Diner and then continued on to the Kane Gulch Ranger Station to pick up our permits. After watching the video and grabbing our permits we finished the short drive to the trailhead and got ready to start the hike.

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Grand Gulch: Pollys Canyon to Collins Canyon

Wednesday – Saturday, April 13-16, 2016

Spending a few days backpacking in southern Utah seems to have become an annual tradition for Dave, Jared and myself. A few months ago we started planning our trip to visit another section of Grand Gulch between Pollys Canyon and Collins Canyon that we had not been through before and Dave secured the backpacking permits for our small group. Our plan for Wednesday was to drive down and meet up at a campsite along the road to the Collins Canyon Trailhead. Dave and Jared would be leaving early in the afternoon from Salt Lake City and I’d be leaving after work from Grand Junction. I stopped for a quick dinner in Moab and made it to the campsite just after the sun set for the day. They had arrived about an hour before me. I quickly got my tentcot setup just after dark and we all went to bed early on this beautiful evening.

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Kane Gulch to Bullet Canyon

Grand Gulch Loop
Friday – Saturday, May 1-3, 2015

After spending a few days in lower Grand Gulch last week, I went back home to work for four days before driving back down to Cedar Mesa to backpack the popular Kane Gulch to Bullet Canyon loop of Grand Gulch with Diane. This would be Diane’s first multi-night backpacking trip and she was looking forward to it. We left home late on Thursday evening after Diane got out of class and reached our campsite for the night at Coyote Flat around 10:00pm. We quickly setup camp in the dark and went to bed right away. Unfortunately, after a few hours Diane found out that her Thermarest sleeping pad was leaking and she didn’t sleep very well that night.

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Lower Grand Gulch

Wednesday – Sunday, April 22-26, 2015

It seems to have become an annual spring tradition for Jared, Dave and myself to plan a backpacking trip in late April or early May to southern Utah in search of ancient ruins and rock art. This year we decided to spend three nights in lower Grand Gulch. I left from work on Wednesday afternoon and drove straight down to Cedar Mesa where I met up with Dave and Jared in our usual camp spot. We sat around the fire to catch up and tentatively worked out some plans for the next few days before getting into our sleeping bags shortly after darkness set in for the night.

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