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Tag: natural bridges national monument

Thanksgiving In The Bears Ears

Thanksgiving Weekend | Thursday – Sunday, November 23-26, 2017

Except for last year, it has been kind of a tradition for Diane and I to spend the long Thanksgiving Weekend exploring southern Utah around Cedar Mesa, Comb Ridge and Montezuma Canyon. This year was our first Thanksgiving in the area since it was officially designated as Bears Ears National Monument late last year. Of course, at this point it’s not certain how much longer this Monument will be around in its current form…

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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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Cedar Mesa for Thanksgiving

Thursday – Sunday, November 27-30, 2014

For Thanksgiving this year, Diane and I decided to spend a nice relaxing weekend on Cedar Mesa and we really lucked out with nice weather all weekend. The high temperatures were in the upper 50’s during the day and low temperatures only dropped into the mid-30’s at night. We had camped in colder temperatures in the mountains during the summer! The campground at Natural Bridges National Monument made a perfect base-camp for us, which also happened to be free during the winter months and was a nice surprise. Diane had prepared a nice Thanksgiving dinner that we ate next to the campfire on Thursday night. The rest of the weekend we hiked in search of ruins and rock art. We ended up visiting many ruins that I had been to a long time ago and that Diane had never been to before, which allowed me to try and get some better photos of them. We explored a few new areas, too. Enjoy the photos from our weekend!

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Cedar Mesa Ruins & Rock Art

Friday – Sunday, June 8-10, 2012

This weekend I met my friend Philippe and his wife on their annual trip to the Southwest from France. This year we planned a day to do a little hiking and exploring on Cedar Mesa (Last year we spent a day hiking in the San Rafael Swell). We spent Saturday hiking together and searching for a few ruins and rock art sites. That evening I ended up camping at their campsite in Natural Bridges. We also had an unexpected visitor to camp that evening when Laurent Martres and one of his friends stopped by. It was nice to meet him since I used his Photographing the Southwest books when I first started getting into photography a few years ago. We also got to see a sneak peek of a new book he will be publishing soon. On Sunday I went off on my own to do a little more exploring before heading back home. Here are plenty of photos from the weekend in no particular order.

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Veterans Day Weekend at Natural Bridges

November Cedar Mesa & Comb Ridge Trip 2011
Friday & Saturday, November 11-12, 2011

Right after an awesome three day weekend in Northern Arizona I was headed down to Cedar Mesa with my friend Jackson for another long weekend over Veterans Day weekend. Our destination and goal for this trip was to explore Natural Bridges National Monument for two days. I had been to the park once before, but at that time we only stayed up on the canyon rim and viewed the bridges from their respective overlooks. This trip we were planning on descending down into White Canyon so that we could begin to explore the area for the abundent ruins and rock art found within the park. This was just the first of many trips I plan to spend exploring the area!

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