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The Grandest of Gulches: Back Into Lower Grand Gulch

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 11 | Thursday – Sunday, March 21-24, 2024

This week Diane and I took Thursday and Friday off from work so we could meet up with our friend Jared and spend a couple of days backpacking into lower Grand Gulch within the Bears Ears National Monument. While this would be Diane’s first time hiking into this part of Grand Gulch, Jared and I had hiked here about nine years ago and I was really looking forward to the return visit. From the very start of the hike we could tell there was a lot of water in the canyon from recent storms and that it might have even flash flooded recently, but all that water also created a lot of quicksand and mud in the wash that significantly slowed down our progress and forced us to follow brushy deer trails across the benches in many places. The weather during the first three days of our hike was great and the nights even stayed pretty warm, we only encountered wet weather during our final night in the canyon and during the hike back out of Collins Canyon. Here are some photos taken during our four days in Grand Gulch.

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Moab Meanderings: Moab Area Rock Art XLII

Rill Creek and the North Fork of Mill Creek

Moab Meanderings: Moab Area Rock Art XLII

Saturday & Sunday, March 9-10, 2024

This weekend Diane and I stayed close to home and returned to Moab so we could finish what we had started a couple of weeks ago. We left home early on Saturday morning, grabbed a campsite at the Sand Flats Recreation Area and then headed out to spend the rest of the day hiking and searching for rock art. I knew we were probably pushing it trying to camp near Moab at this time of the year, but I was hoping we were still early enough in the season that it wouldn’t be too busy yet. Well, I was wrong and this will most likely be our last trip to the Moab area until next winter. Here are some photos from the weekend.

Moab’s Old Mail Trail: Mill Creek to South Mesa

Moab Meanderings | Saturday & Sunday, February 24-25, 2024

After spending a couple of days searching for rock art along the Pahranagat Trail in Nevada last week, I decided to stay a little closer to home this weekend to spend some time near Moab before it really starts getting too busy around there. Earlier this month after Diane and I had hiked a short section of Moab’s Old Mail Trail along the rim of Mill Creek, I became very interested in learning more about this route and started doing some research into it. Although I wasn’t able to find very much information about it, I think I was able to find enough to try my hand at tracing this historic route from Mill Creek to South Mesa. I really didn’t have much information to go on besides some broad locations, vague newspaper articles, the segment of the existing trail and some educated guesses on my part, so I may not have gotten it all correct. But even if I am completely wrong with my guesses, this turned out to be a very nice hike and a great way to spend the day in the backcountry. That said, if anyone out there has more information about the route of the Old Mail Trail, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

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Stories on Stone: Rock Art from the Pahranagat Trail

Presidents Day Weekend | Thursday – Monday, February 15-19, 2024

This year for the Presidents Day holiday weekend I decided to take Friday off from work so I could spend four days exploring and searching for rock art along the Pahranagat Trail, which straddles the Mojave Desert and Great Basin Desert in southern Nevada. Just like last year, I invited my friend Jared along and he was up for joining me again. Unfortunately, he was unable to get Friday off from work so we planned to meet up later that night, which meant that I was on my own for Friday. I left from work on Thursday afternoon, headed to St. George where I grabbed a late dinner and then found a spot to camp just over the state line in Arizona. On Friday morning I was up early and on my way into Nevada.

Moab Meanderings: Moab Area Rock Art XLI

Saturday & Sunday, February 10-11, 2024

On Saturday morning Diane and I left home early and headed over to Moab so we could spend our weekend hiking in canyons and searching for rock art together. Although I have hiked through these same canyons before and visited most of the petroglyphs and pictographs we saw many years ago, it’s an area I’ve wanted to return to for a while and since Diane had never been here before it was fun to show her around for the first time. On Saturday the weather was a bit interesting with fast-moving clouds after a clearing storm, but later in the afternoon as we were hiking back to the trailhead we got caught in a graupel storm that turned into a snowstorm. Up until that point it had been one of those days where the temperature felt nice when the sun was out, but it felt cold and chilly when the sun disappeared behind the clouds. Here are some photos from the weekend.

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Tag: petroglyphs

The Grandest of Gulches: Back Into Lower Grand Gulch

Moab Meanderings: Moab Area Rock Art XLII

Moab’s Old Mail Trail: Mill Creek to South Mesa

Stories on Stone: Rock Art from the Pahranagat Trail

Moab Meanderings: Moab Area Rock Art XLI