snow // ADVENTR.co

President’s Day Weekend on Cedar Mesa

Saturday – Monday, February 14-16, 2015

Diane and I spent Valentine’s Day and the long President’s Day weekend on Cedar Mesa for our very first camping trip of the year. We setup our base-camp at the Natural Bridges National Monument campground and enjoyed the beautiful spring-like weather all weekend. The temperature never dropped below freezing at night and was a very comfortable mid-sixties during the day. It was nice hiking weather in the middle of February and a great time to get outside to explore the Colorado Plateau! We spent the weekend revisiting a few ruins and searching remote canyons for new ones. Here are plenty of photos from our weekend adventure!

10 Comments

Mesa Lakes Snowshoeing

Sunday, January 4, 2015

After our trip to northern Arizona earlier in the week, we were looking forward to spending a lazy weekend relaxing at home, but we still felt the need to get outside for some snowshoeing on Sunday. We decided to drive up to Mesa Lakes on the Grand Mesa for a short loop on packed trails. We started following the West Bench Trail past Sunset Lake, then followed Mesa Creek back past the Ranger Station and circled around Sunset Lake to Beaver Lake before returning to the trailhead on the other side of Jumbo Reservoir. It was a nice short loop that got us outside into the snow for a little while.

Wave Winter Wonderland

New Year’s Day | Thursday, January 1, 2015

Welcome to my first trip report of 2015, and what an adventure it was! This was a fun trip report to write, not because the photos are necessarily great, but because it was a fun day in unique conditions. This may have been my tenth visit to Coyote Buttes North, but all the snow on the ground made this familiar area feel new and exciting. It’s amazing what difference a couple of days can make. Plus, we were the very first visitors to The Wave in 2015!

14 Comments

Birthday Arch & Horseshoe Bend

Birthday Arch & Horseshoe Bend

New Year’s Eve | Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Yesterday was supposed to have been an easy day of hiking to Cobra Arch, but after adding another hike down the Paria River we ended up hiking another 11 mile day. I always seem have problems keeping my easy days short! Since we were planning on hiking back to The Wave tomorrow, I promised Diane that today could really be an easy day. We decided to visit Birthday Arch in Buck Tank Draw a few miles west of Big Water, Utah which was only supposed to be about 4-5 miles round trip. We woke up a little bit later this morning and found that it was snowing pretty good outside, but the weather wouldn’t deter us.

4 Comments

Christmas in Arches 2014

Christmas Day | Thursday, December 25, 2014

If you’ve been following my blog for more than a year, you might already know that I have an annual tradition where I spend Christmas Day in Arches National Park every year. This year would be the first time Diane would be joining me on this annual trip. There was a snowstorm in the forecast for Christmas Day in Grand Junction and Moab, so I made sure that we left very early in the morning so that we could beat the storm and would hopefully only have to drive through it once. The plan worked out pretty well and we only encountered some snow around Crescent Junction that slowed us down for a few miles. The snow didn’t start to fall in Arches until we were in the park, so our timing was perfect! Since it was snowing pretty hard when we reached Balanced Rock, I decided to head for The Windows section first so I could try and take some photos in the snow.

2 Comments

Tag: snow

President’s Day Weekend on Cedar Mesa

Mesa Lakes Snowshoeing

Wave Winter Wonderland

Birthday Arch & Horseshoe Bend

Christmas in Arches 2014