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Tag: nature trail

The Kaibab Plateau: Cape Final to Point Sublime

Fall Colors along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
Saturday – Monday, September 28-30, 2024

After spending the preceding week on an amazing rafting trip through the Canyon of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument, our group got off the river in the early afternoon on Friday and I made it home a few hours after that. Then I spent the rest of the evening unloading all my river gear and packing up my car-camping gear into the Jeep so I could leave on Saturday morning to spend a full week along the Arizona Strip and North Rim of the Grand Canyon with my friend Jared. Although we typically spend this first week in October wandering around Southern Utah, every so often we like to change it up and venture a little further south into Arizona. Thankfully we decided to begin our trip with a couple days on the Kaibab Plateau because it happened to be very warm all over the southwest this week and at least it was a little bit cooler up at these higher elevations. Plus, we got really lucky with the timing of our trip and managed to see the peak of the fall colors on display while we were up on the Kaibab Plateau, too!

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The Rim Trails at Dead Horse Point State Park

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Although I originally had a different and more local trip planned for this weekend, which I’ll hopefully be able to get back to in early December, the weather forecast made me reconsider those plans on Friday since it was predicted to start raining on Saturday afternoon and continue all through Sunday. With a partly cloudy sky in the forecast for Saturday morning I decided to get up early and head on over to Dead Horse Point State Park where I would hopefully be able to catch a nice sunrise from the main overlook and then could spend the rest of the morning hiking the remainder of the trails in the park that I had not been on before, which consisted of a loop of the East Rim Trail and the West Rim Trail along with a couple of shorter spur trails leading to overlooks along the way. A few years back Diane and I had spent a nice weekend mountain biking all of the Intrepid Trails in the park and I’ve been meaning to get back to finish up the hiking trails, so I’ve been looking forward to a return visit.

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Kodachrome Flat: Land of Sand Pipes & Chimneys

Veterans Day Weekend at Kodachrome Basin State Park
Thursday – Sunday, November 9-12, 2023

Kodachrome Basin State Park is a relatively small park located in Southern Utah that is nestled into the rugged canyon country between the White Cliffs and the Pink Cliffs of the Grand Staircase and is best known for the sixty-seven towering sand pipes that dominate the desert landscape. These sedimentary pipes are believed to be found nowhere else on earth and while there are several theories that have been proposed to try to explain their formation, geologists are still unsure of the exact origin of these unusual sand spires. Over the years I have driven right past the entrance to Kodachrome Basin on numerous occasions as I have driven down the Cottonwood Road while exploring the Grand – Staircase Escalate National Monument, which practically surrounds this small reserve, and in all that time I have never stopped to check it out. This holiday weekend I finally planned to change all that by spending some quality time hiking and exploring the interesting landscape of Kodachrome Flat.

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