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The High Plateaus of Utah: Proper Edge of the Sky

The Plateau Provence: Peaks & Plateaus of the Colorado Plateau
Wednesday – Friday, August 30 – September 1, 2023

The High Plateaus of Utah are a group of elevated tablelands that form the boundary between the Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin in Central Utah and are what Wallace Stegner once described as “those remarkable mountains that are not mountains at all but greatly elevated rolling plains.” Although I have driven around and between the High Plateaus many times over the years, I have not spent very much time up on top of any of them and I wanted to change that this summer so I could see what they were all about. And what better way is there to get to know a new place than by driving the backroads and visiting the highpoints along the way! I figured that I would start at the northern end of the Wasatch Plateau and then work my way south, looping back around to finish up on Thousand Lake Mountain, where I could hop back on I-70 and head back home after a nice introduction to the area. That was the plan, and I thought it was a pretty good one, but as you will see, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

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Nine Mile Canyon 2018

Diane’s Birthday Weekend | Saturday & Sunday, October 20-21, 2018

Since it was Diane’s birthday was on Saturday and she wanted to spend the weekend in Nine Mile Canyon, that’s what we did! It actually worked out great since neither of us had been there yet this year and I like to try to get there at least once each year. We left home early on Saturday morning, stopped at the gas station in Wellington and then headed right into the canyon to see what we could find. There was nothing in particular that I was looking for on this trip, so we just drove slowly through the canyon and kept an eye out to see what we could find. It’s really amazing that no matter how many times I have driven through this canyon we were still able to find quite a few new petroglyphs and pictographs, and even a couple ruins. We spent all day in the canyon and then returned to Wellington where we took a little break from camping and spent the night in a hotel. Then on Sunday morning we were back in the canyon for a few more hours before heading back home. It was a great time! Here are plenty of photos from the weekend.

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Nine Mile Canyon Revisited

Friday & Saturday, December 9-10, 2016

After attending a concert in Salt Lake City on Thursday night it was time to start heading back home on Friday morning. However, I planned to spend Friday afternoon and all day Saturday in Nine Mile Canyon before finishing the drive back to Grand Junction. I had hoped to revisit some sites lower in the canyon that I had not been to in many years plus find a few sites along the road that I had missed or not found during previous visits. I was also planning on photographing The Great Hunt Panel at sunset on Friday evening. For being December, the weather was not too cold and there was very little snow in the canyon. Friday afternoon was the nicer of the two days with temperatures in the upper 40’s and the sun was out, while Saturday was a little bit cooler with overcast skies and a cold wind that had picked up. Enjoy plenty of photos of the rock art below!

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Warrior Ridge in Nine Mile Canyon

Saturday, May 21, 2016

On our way to spend a long weekend in Salt Lake City so we could attend a concert on Sunday night (that was sadly cancelled), Diane and I met up with our friends Dennis and Alan to explore the rock art of Warrior Ridge in Nine Mile Canyon. I had contacted Dennis a few weeks earlier to see if he was interested in visiting Warrior Ridge and Alan was able to secure permission to cross the private property so we could get access to the ridge. We met up in Wellington on Saturday morning and then drove into Nine Mile Canyon to begin the hike. The drive from Grand Junction to Wellington had been very windy, but once we were in Nine Mile Canyon the wind didn’t seem to be quite as bad.

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Big Blue Creek

Labor Day Weekend | Saturday – Monday, September 5-7, 2015

This year for the long Labor Day weekend I wanted to go on another backpacking trip into the Uncompahgre Wilderness of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, but I also wanted to go somewhere that was unlikely to be crowded since this is probably one of the busiest camping weekends of the year. After some research I selected the Big Blue Creek drainage as our destination. Not only was there very little information about this area online and in guides, which hopefully meant it wouldn’t be very crowded, but I was also hoping to photograph the north face of Uncompahgre Peak (14,309) at sunrise since I hadn’t seen too many photos of this massive mountain from that side. I had originally thought about connecting the Fall Creek and Failes Creek trails to create a big loop hike but changed that idea so that I would be able to spend two mornings photographing Uncompahgre Peak to help improve my chances of catching a great sunrise.