private property // ADVENTR.co

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition: 250 Years Later

Pageant in the Wilderness: Following in the Footsteps of Friars Dominguez & Escalante
Saturday – Monday, September 19-21, 2026 (August 27 – September 17, 1776)

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition through the southwest and I wanted to do a little something special to celebrate the semiquincentennial of this monumental undertaking in my own little way. Although I would have liked to have been able to follow in the footsteps of Dominguez & Escalante (D&E) for the entirety of their route through New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, I just don’t have that kind of free time available to me right now and decided it would be nice to just concentrate on the section of their route that is closest to my home. I planned to pick up their route at the Uncompahgre River in Montrose and then follow in their footsteps as closely as I could over the Grand Mesa and Roan Plateau to the White River, and then finally to the Green River in the Uinta Basin in Utah. I figured that I should be able to cover this part of their route in a weekend, but still, even with this shorter route a weekend would probably be too short for me to see it all and I would be limited on the amount of hiking I would be able to do along the way, sticking mostly to roads that roughly follow their original route.

4 Comments

Rock Art Along the Old Trappers’ Trail

Book Cliffs Rock Art VIII | Friday, August 30, 2024

After spending most of Monday hiking with a friend in the San Rafael Swell, we met up again on Friday morning in the Book Cliffs so we could spend a few hours visiting rock art sites along the Old Trappers’ Trail, which was a historic route in eastern Utah that travelled through the Book Cliffs to the Uinta Basin. While much of this rock art is located on private property and some of it is visible from the public road, my friend had secured us permission from the ranch to access their property so we could get a closer look at these images. After viewing and photographing the rock art in this area for most of the monrning, I returned to the Interstate and continued west to Green River where I grabbed lunch at Ray’s and then headed out to spend the rest of the weekend exploring the High Plateaus of Utah. Here are some photos from my morning along the Old Trappers’ Trail.

Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs

Memorial Day Weekend | Friday – Monday, May 28-31, 2021
Book Cliffs Rock Art VI

Last year Diane and I completely skipped going anywhere over the Memorial Day weekend because we didn’t want to deal with the massive COVID-crowds that were out and about at the time, but this year I wanted to get out somewhere close to home while still avoiding the crowds. After poring over maps I decided that the best place for me to go this year would be up into the Book Cliffs. Not only are the Book Cliffs close to home, but I don’t think they are a place that crowds usually flock to and I was hoping to find plenty of solitude. It’s actually been quite a while since I spent much time in the Book Cliffs so this would be a good opportunity for me to revisit some places I haven’t been to in a while and also explore some new ones! I knew it would probably be pretty warm out this weekend, so I was planning to take it easy by mostly exploring the backroads with my Jeep and only going on short hikes along the way.

4 Comments

Little Cone: The Other Cone

Friday & Saturday, September 11-12, 2020

After spending the end of last week on a road trip driving Across the Great Basin and Back, this weekend it was time to get back to hiking in the mountains of Colorado since the season will be ending for me very soon. After climbing Lone Cone a couple years back and Groundhog Mountain earlier this summer, I thought it was time to tackle Little Cone which is another isolated mountain that is located at the western edge of the western San Juan Mountains and sits just to the north of Middle and Dolores Peaks. Although this solitary 11er stands out when you are in the area, I don’t believe the summit sees too many visitors because access is tricky since this mountain is almost completely surrounded by private property. If it weren’t for just one narrow strip of public National Forest land, it would be impossible to climb this peak without permission from a landowner. Luckily that one little strip of land is all I needed to make it to the summit!

Rock Art Ranch: Chevelon Canyon

My 40th Birthday Foray into Arizona and New Mexico
Monday, February 10, 2020

After spending a nice weekend exploring Petrified Forest National Park for the first time, it was time to move on to our next destination of the trip. Since I have wanted to visit the petroglyphs of the Rock Art Ranch in Chevelon Canyon for many years and we were already going to be nearby in Holbrook, I had called a few weeks prior to schedule a tour for Monday morning. While checking the weather forecast on Sunday evening it looked like there was a storm system moving through the area that could interrupt these plans. When we woke up on Monday morning it was already windy and cold out along with sleet, rain and snow falling. However, looking at the updated weather forecast it looked like we might luck out as the precipitation was supposed to stop before our tour at 10:00am. After breakfast and loading up our vehicle it was still raining out as we made our way over to the ranch, but thankfully it did stop during our drive out there, so the timing was perfect!

1 Comment

Tag: private property

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition: 250 Years Later

Rock Art Along the Old Trappers’ Trail

Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs

Little Cone: The Other Cone

Rock Art Ranch: Chevelon Canyon