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Under The Ledge: Waterhole Flat to Teapot Canyon

Friday – Sunday, November 3-5, 2023

This weekend I headed back into the country Under the Ledge for the second time this year so I could finally stay at the Teapot Rock campsite, which is located along the road to The Doll House just before it starts to get rough. Although I have tried to book this camp during previous trips into the region, it always seemed to have been unavailable and never worked out for me, but since it’s the final campsite in the Maze District that I had not stayed at yet, I figured it was worth putting together a special trip to finally make it happen this year. A couple of months ago I booked the site for two nights so I could spend an extended weekend exploring the canyons in the area and I invited my friend Jared along to join me. So now after this weekend, besides having hiked all of the trails in Canyonlands National Park, I have finally completed my goal of staying at all of the designated campsites within the Maze District and Orange Cliffs Unit of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area!

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The Sculptured Earth: End of Trails in The Maze

Lost in The Maze III | Friday – Monday, March 31 – April 3, 2023

After spending the past couple years working to hike all of the trails in Canyonlands National Park and completing the ones in The Needles and Island in the Sky districts in 2018 and 2019, I turned my attention to my remaining trails in The Maze, but it’s taken me a bit longer to hike them all since it’s not quite as easy to get over there for a quick weekend trip. Last spring I had hiked most of the remaining trails from the Land of Standing Rocks with my friends Dave and Jared, but we did not have the time to make it down into lower Horse Canyon on that trip, which was now my only trail left on this official map that I’ve been using to keep track, and also my final trail left in all of Canyonlands! After that trip I made it my goal to hike into lower Horse Canyon this spring, so I booked a backpacking permit back in November and invited my friend Jackson to come along.

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Under The Ledge: Trails in the Land of Standing Rocks

Lost In The Maze II | Wednesday – Sunday, April 6-10, 2022

I can hardly believe it’s been just over four years since my last visit to the Land of Standing Rocks in Canyonlands National Park. It feels like it was just yesterday when Diane and I were heading out to The Maze over the long Memorial Day weekend each spring, and I’ve recently had a strong desire to return. After completing all the trails in The Needles and the Island in the Sky in 2018 and 2019 respectively, The Maze is the only remaining district of Canyonlands where I have not hiked every official trail on the map, so I figured it was time to head back and continue working on completing that personal goal. That’s part of the reason I hiked down the North Trail late last year. So back in early November I got on Rec.gov and booked couple campsites in the Land of Standing Rocks, two nights at Chimney Rock and two nights at The Wall, which seemed like a good place to basecamp for the trails that I wanted to hike this time. My friend Jerry, Jared and Dave were going to be joining me on this trip, but unfortunately Jerry got sick just before the trip started and was unable to make it this time.

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The Orange Cliffs: North Trail & Millard Canyon Rim

Friday – Sunday, November 5-7, 2021

This weekend I decided to spend a little time hiking and exploring along the Orange Cliffs in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which are the tall Wingate Sandstone cliffs located to the east of Robbers Roost and to the west of The Maze. Since I have already hiked all of the official trails that descend from the Island in the Sky and the Canyon Rims Recreation Area, I thought it was finally time to check out the North Trail which descends from North Point to Elaterite Basin. Most people that hike this trail use it to access The Maze when they don’t have a vehicle that can be driven down the Flint Trail, but since I’ve never had that problem I never really had a reason to hike it before, so I was looking forward to finally checking it out.

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From the Colorado River to the Henry Mountains

Friday – Sunday, May 4-6, 2018

This weekend Diane and I headed back to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area so we could hike to a few rock art sites that we didn’t have time to look for during our trip into The Maze last month. Then we spent the rest of the weekend exploring parts of North Wash and Cedar Point as we headed back toward the edge of the Henry Mountains south of Hanksville. We left after I got out of work on Friday afternoon and drove west into Utah, like we’ve done many times this year already. We stopped in Green River for dinner and fuel, which thankfully was not nearly as busy as the last time we tried to stop here! Then we continued south through Hanksville and followed North Wash into the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area near Hite. I made a left turn onto the road that leads to the Flint Trail and followed it around Rock Canyon to Andy Miller Flats where we found a nice campsite for the night. It had been dark for a while by the time we found a spot to setup our camp, so we had to put up our tent with some help from the headlights on my Jeep. Once the tent was setup we crawled inside and went right to bed, and Diane tells me that I fell asleep very quickly this night.

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Tag: orange cliffs unit

Under The Ledge: Waterhole Flat to Teapot Canyon

The Sculptured Earth: End of Trails in The Maze

Under The Ledge: Trails in the Land of Standing Rocks

The Orange Cliffs: North Trail & Millard Canyon Rim

From the Colorado River to the Henry Mountains