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Tag: moss back butte

Thanksgiving Weekend on Cedar Mesa

Thanksgiving Weekend | Thursday – Sunday, November 28 – December 1, 2019

This year for Thanksgiving Diane and I planned to spend the long holiday weekend searching for ruins and rock art on Cedar Mesa like we usually do at this time of the year. However, this year we had to deal with a winter storm that impacted the area and required us to change our plans on the fly. Although I wasn’t able to hike in the canyons I had originally planned for this trip, we managed to avoid most of the weather and find things to do throughout the weekend. Here are some photos from the weekend in no particular order…

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Bears Ears Lost

Thursday – Sunday, March 15-18, 2018

This weekend I headed down to Cedar Mesa and the Bears Ears area to meet up with my friend Alan for a weekend of hiking. I drove down a little early so I could pick up my Annual Cedar Mesa Hiking Pass from the Kane Gulch Ranger Station and then did a little hiking and exploring on my own before I met up with Alan. Sometimes you just need to get out and wander through a canyon by yourself! Last year all of the area we explored would have been located within Bears Ears National Monument, but after last month I’m pretty sure that everywhere we went is now outside of the new boundaries. Although, I’m not exactly sure what the status of those changes are and if they are official or not? The weather on Friday and Saturday was very nice, but I ended up having to cut my trip a day short since it started to snow and rain on Sunday morning. We definitely needed the precipitation and I had already had a few nice hikes, so it wasn’t too disappointing. Here are some photos from the weekend.

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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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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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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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