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Rabbit’s Ear Trail

Sunday, April 19, 2015

This morning I decided to sleep in a little later since I was up early on Saturday morning to photograph the sunrise at the Colorado National Monument. After breakfast, Diane and I drove over to Rabbit Valley near the state line for an afternoon hike on the Rabbit’s Ear Trail. This is a nice trail that climbs to the top of Rabbit’s Ear Mesa and then loops around the rim with expansive views over Ruby Canyon of the Colorado River and the rest of the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area. Since we were out hiking under harsh mid-afternoon light I didn’t take many photos, but I will definitely be returning in the future to make some better images from this location. Here are a couple of snapshots from our hike…

Davis Canyon

Saturday & Sunday, March 21-22, 2015

After spending the last two weekends close to home in the Grand Valley it was time to head back over the state line into Utah for an overnight camping trip near the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. We left home bright and early on Saturday morning and drove through Moab and Indian Creek Canyon on our way to Davis Canyon, where we setup camp just outside of the park.

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The White Rim

Canyonlands National Park’s 50th Birthday
Friday – Sunday, September 12-14, 2014

So far I’ve had a great year exploring many new areas of Canyonlands National Park. I was finally able to backpack through Salt Creek Canyon in The Needles, which had been a longtime goal of mine and one of the main reasons I started backpacking in the first place. Then I spent a nice weekend in The Maze with Diane and made it to the Maze Overlook and also discovered what a wonderful place Millard Canyon is. We even made it to The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon on that trip so that Diane was able to view some of the magnificent rock art there for the first time. With all these great trips this year I thought I would try my luck again at completing the White Rim Road in the Island in the Sky, too.

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Cedar Mesa & Beyond

Friday – Sunday, March 14-16, 2014

On Friday morning, Diane and I headed south towards Cedar Mesa in southern Utah to spend a long weekend hiking, camping and searching for some new rock art sites along the way. While the weather was nice during the days it was still a bit cold overnight and in the mornings, especially on Sunday morning when it dropped down to the low 20’s when we woke up around sunrise. Friday was a little breezy with nice clouds in the sky but Saturday was very windy. We got sand-blasted on Saturday pretty good while searching boulders for petroglyphs in the afternoon. When Sunday arrived the winds had finally calmed down and the skies had cleared. We had a great weekend and managed to find everything we were looking for.

The Sandstone Bowl

Saturday, March 1, 2014

When Diane and I woke up Saturday morning we had no plans for the day. We wanted to do something outsite but the weather was calling for rain all day. In the end we decided to ignore the weather reports since it looked nice outside and took a last minute trip just over the stateline into Utah so I could check on a geocache that I had placed a few years back. It’s in a remote area that sees little traffic so very few people have actually found it. It had been a while since I had been out that way and I was looking forward to hiking around the area. After getting off the pavement onto the Yellow Cat Road we ran into some pretty muddy conditions that slowed down driving, but nothing too bad. After leaving the Yellow Cat Road we pretty much drove on sandy roads the rest of the day and didn’t have to deal with any more slippery mud. Although, a lot of the two-track roads we drove were filled with tumbleweeds, so we had to deal with those instead. It appears that we were the first vehicle on some of these roads this season. Even though there were storms all around us for most of the day we managed to miss most of the rain. It was a bit windy out all day, but the scattered clouds made for some excellent photography conditions with the changing light and shadows. My favorite kind of day!