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The Lower San Juan River

Mexican Hat to Clay Hills Crossing
Tuesday – Saturday, May 12-16, 2015

For the past two years a few friends and I have floated the upper section of the San Juan River from Sand Island to Mexican Hat during the month of May. It’s a very nice section of river, but this year we wanted to do something different, so we attempted to get a permit for the lower section of the San Juan River from Mexican Hat to Clay Hills Crossing. My friend Jackson was lucky in the permit lottery and we received our first choice of dates on the river, plus we were even able to secure our preferred reserved campsite, too. For once our plans came together nicely and easily!

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Devils Garden Primitive Loop

Saturday, February 21, 2015

This weekend Diane and I went on another day trip to Arches National Park so we could hike the Devils Garden Primitive Loop. It has been a number of years since I last hiked the loop so I was looking forward to getting back, and this would be Diane’s first time hiking beyond Landscape Arch. We left bright and early on Saturday morning and made it to the Devils Garden trailhead shortly after the sun had come up. Good thing we weren’t planning on photographing the sunrise this morning since it was still pretty overcast when we started the hike.

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President’s Day Weekend on Cedar Mesa

Saturday – Monday, February 14-16, 2015

Diane and I spent Valentine’s Day and the long President’s Day weekend on Cedar Mesa for our very first camping trip of the year. We setup our base-camp at the Natural Bridges National Monument campground and enjoyed the beautiful spring-like weather all weekend. The temperature never dropped below freezing at night and was a very comfortable mid-sixties during the day. It was nice hiking weather in the middle of February and a great time to get outside to explore the Colorado Plateau! We spent the weekend revisiting a few ruins and searching remote canyons for new ones. Here are plenty of photos from our weekend adventure!

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Christmas in Arches 2014

Christmas Day | Thursday, December 25, 2014

If you’ve been following my blog for more than a year, you might already know that I have an annual tradition where I spend Christmas Day in Arches National Park every year. This year would be the first time Diane would be joining me on this annual trip. There was a snowstorm in the forecast for Christmas Day in Grand Junction and Moab, so I made sure that we left very early in the morning so that we could beat the storm and would hopefully only have to drive through it once. The plan worked out pretty well and we only encountered some snow around Crescent Junction that slowed us down for a few miles. The snow didn’t start to fall in Arches until we were in the park, so our timing was perfect! Since it was snowing pretty hard when we reached Balanced Rock, I decided to head for The Windows section first so I could try and take some photos in the snow.

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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.