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Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 16

Wednesday – Sunday, March 18-22, 2026

This year Dave, Jared and I decided to take it easier during our annual Spring Trip and eschewed our typical longer backpacking trip for car-camping and day-hiking on Cedar Mesa since we were worried about finding water in the canyons after the very dry winter the Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountains have experienced. This turned out to be a good decision for us since much of the Southwest was experiencing an unprecedented heat wave during the same time, and to be honest, I would not have been up for carrying a heavy pack in this heat. Because of the very warm temperatures we didn’t hike as much as we normally would and ended up spending more time relaxing and resting in the shade at camp in the afternoons. I did get a lot of reading in! These are some photos of what we saw over our four days in Bears Ears National Monument.

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Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country II

Friday – Sunday, November 22-24, 2024

This weekend I met up with a friend so we could explore some new places surrounding Bears Ears National Monument, although we did end up making our way up onto the edges of Cedar Mesa for a couple of short hikes, too. I left from work on Friday afternoon, grabbed dinner at Milt’s in Moab before they close for the winter, and then continued on towards Blanding where I stopped for an evening photo over Recapture Reservoir before finding a campsite just outside of town and getting to bed early. Then early on Saturday morning I met up with my friend in Blanding and we headed out into the Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country for the rest of the weekend. These are some photos of what we saw.

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 9

Southern Utah Wanderings | Tuesday – Thursday, October 3-5, 2023

After spending the last couple of days exploring the canyons of the Dark Canyon Plateau, it was now time for Jared and I to spend a little time in the canyons of Cedar Mesa. After grabbing dinner and replenishing our supplies in Blanding on Monday afternoon, we returned to Comb Wash and found a nice campsite to spend the night in. Then on Tuesday morning we headed up the narrow and sandy road into Arch Canyon where we planned to stay through the following day. It’s been just about fifteen years since either of us had driven into Arch Canyon and we were looking forward to some new hikes, spending the night in the canyon, and hopefully finding some ruins that we had missed on previous visits.

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Thanksgiving Weekend Below the Bears Ears

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 8 | Thursday – Saturday, November 24-26, 2022

This year during the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend Diane was able to get away from her clinical rotations for a little while and join me on our annual trip into the Bears Ears region. Our friend Jared was also able to meet us down there, so we all went out hiking in the canyons together. Although I had originally planned to spend all four days in the area, our cat Tellico (Rico) is having some health issues and we didn’t want to leave her home for that long, so we decided to cut the trip short by a day and come home on Saturday afternoon instead. The weather was great for hiking and we had a nice time exploring new parts of canyons we had been in before, plus we were able to revisit some other favorite places. Here are a couple photos from the weekend!

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Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 3

Thursday – Sunday, March 25-28, 2021

This weekend Jerry and I were planning to go on a three-day backpacking trip in Capitol Reef National Park, but as the weekend got closer the weather forecast was not looking good. The forecast was calling for much cooler temperatures with rain and snow which would not have been good for the narrow water-filled canyon we wanted to hike, so it looked like we would be changing our plans. Instead, we decided to head further south to Comb Ridge and Cedar Mesa since we knew we would be able to work around the weather there no matter what it did. I left after work on Friday afternoon and headed south to meet up with Jerry. After getting stuck in traffic for a while just before entering Moab, I drove through some pretty strong winds with snow from about Monticello to Blanding. I met Jerry at the Butler Wash Ruins just after sunset and we decided to camp along Comb Wash, just in case there was a lot of precipitation overnight and the roads got muddy. As predicted, there was more rain and snow overnight so on Friday we stuck to the lower elevations and did a little hiking on Comb Ridge. Later in the day things had started to dry out so we headed up onto Cedar Mesa for the rest of the weekend. Here are some photos from our weekend spent below the Bears Ears.

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Tag: snow flat road

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 16

Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country II

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 9

Thanksgiving Weekend Below the Bears Ears

Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 3