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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.

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Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin

Rock Art of the Book Cliffs XI | Friday – Sunday, May 23-25, 2025

After floating through Desolation Canyon last week I’ve become very interested in spending more time within the canyons of the Tavaputs Plateau from the crest of the Book Cliffs to the depression of the Uinta Basin, and I thought this would be the perfect place to spend this busy holiday weekend away from the more popular areas of southern Utah, just like I had done four years ago. I met up with a friend late on Friday afternoon so we could spend the remainder of the weekend camping, hiking and searching the canyons for rock art. Throughout the weekend we found quite a few petroglyphs and pictographs left by a number of different cultures and time periods from Barrier Canyon Style to Fremont and Historic Ute. We ended up driving a lot of dusty miles on rough roads, saw a lot of wildlife including wild horses and elk, plus we saw a lot of dead cows for some reason. These are some photos of what else we saw along the way…

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The Colorado River: Parachute to Beavertail Mountain

Saturday & Sunday, June 29 & 30, 2024

This weekend Jackson and I set out to continue what we had started two weeks ago by floating two more sections of the Colorado River close to home as day trips. Last time we had started near New Castle and left off at Parachute, so this weekend we planned to float two more sections from Parachute down to Beavertail Mountain in De Beque Canyon, which is a section of just over 28 miles. Although there was a lot of storm activity in the area this weekend, we made sure to to get started early and off the river before noon so we had no issues with weather or wind and the mornings were actually perfect for floating the Colorado River!

The Colorado River: Tibbetts to Parachute

Saturday & Sunday, June 15 & 16, 2024

After our recent rafting trip through Cataract Canyon and with an upcoming trip into Westwater Canyon planned for July, Jackson and I are both getting closer to having floated all of the Colorado River from Glenwood Canyon to Lake Powell, but we were still missing a large segment of the river from New Castle to De Beque Canyon. We figured it was about time to start working on this section, especially while the water is still high and moving fast, so this weekend we made plans to float the Colorado River from Tibbetts, which is just upstream of New Castle, to Parachute, a length of just under 40 miles. Since this area is an easy drive from home for us, we decided to split it up into two sections and do each one as a short day trip.

High Mesas and Plateaus of Western Colorado

Flat Top Mountain, Blair Mountain and the Roan Plateau
Friday – Sunday, June 24-26, 2022

This weekend I planned to spend my time hiking and driving to a couple highpoints of the high mesas and plateaus of Western Colorado, starting with a hike I’ve been looking forward to for a while into the Flat Tops Wilderness on Saturday morning. I left after work on Friday afternoon, grabbed a quick dinner in Glenwood Springs and then followed the Colorado River to Dotsero and McCoy and then took Highway 131 north to Yampa. There were storms in the area this afternoon and I was a little worried that Glenwood Canyon might get closed by Flash Flood Warnings, which has been common lately, but thankfully that did not happen. Once I reached Yampa I started following the Bear River on my way to the Stillwater Reservoir, and turned off to take a side road up to Gardner Park to find a spot to camp for the night. I watched the sunset from the edge of the Gardner Park Reservoir and then went to bed early so I could get an early start on Saturday.

Tag: roan plateau

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition: 250 Years Later

Bookin’ It to the Book Cliffs & Uinta Basin

The Colorado River: Parachute to Beavertail Mountain

The Colorado River: Tibbetts to Parachute

High Mesas and Plateaus of Western Colorado