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Moab Meanderings: Moab Area Rock Art XLVII

Saturday – Sunday, December 28-29, 2024

For the final weekend of 2024 I returned to the sandstone landscape surrounding Moab and met up with a friend so we could spend another weekend exploring, hiking, camping and searching for some petroglyphs that I have been trying to find for a while, and we ended up having a lot of luck this time! We were also treated to the sight of fog filling up some of the valleys on both mornings which made for some photogenic conditions, even if it did slow down my drive to Moab quite significantly on Saturday morning. I’ll start off this Trip Report with a few photos from the sunrise I watched at Arches National Park on Sunday morning since it was a great way to close out the year. I hope you all have a great 2025!

Moab Winter Solstice Weekend 2024

Moab Area Rock Art XLV | Saturday – Sunday, December 21-22, 2024

On this weekend before Christmas, Diane and I headed down to Moab so we could spend the Winter Solstice together revisiting a couple of rock art sites that I haven’t been back to in quite some time and so we could also check out a couple of new places and canyons along the way. We left home early on Saturday morning and made our way down along the Colorado River to the Poison Spider Trailhead, which apparently was paved in the last few months, so we could revisit the petroglyphs and dinosaur tracks above the river and then hike over to Longbow Arch from here.

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( ЯR ) The Rimrocker Trail: Montrose to Moab

Getting Lost in the West End: Across the Uncompahgre Plateau & La Sal Mountains
Friday – Sunday, June 7-9, 2024

After having an amazing time on the river in Cataract Canyon last weekend, I wanted to take it easy and stay a bit closer to home this weekend. With warmer temperatures in the valleys and still too much snow in the high country for me, I thought this might be a great opportunity to finally take a scenic weekend drive across the Uncompahgre Plateau and La Sal Mountains from Montrose to Moab on the Rimrocker Trail, while also taking the time to stop for a few short hikes and side trips along the way. The Rimrocker Trail was created in 2016 by linking up existing roads in this remote area of Western Colorado, many of which I have already driven over the past twenty years, especially while I was working on mapping out a 4X4 route of the Tabeguache Trail and Paradox Trail. But even though I have already driven many of these roads before, it’s been a long time and I really don’t remember very much about them, so I was looking forward to the refresher on this 160 mile route. So after spending Friday evening in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, I drove across the Uncompahgre River Valley and found a campsite near Temple Park and the beginning of the Rimrocker Trail so I could get an early start on Saturday morning.

The Twists and Turns of Salt Creek Canyon

Canyonlands National Park | Thursday – Monday, April 4-8, 2024

After a rugged hike around Navajo Mountain last year, Dave, Jared and I decided to return to a very familiar place in Canyonlands National Park for our annual spring backpacking trip this year as we started making plans to continue exploring the twists and turns of Salt Creek Canyon a few months ago. Although we have all hiked into Salt Creek many times over the years, I hadn’t been back to the middle section of the canyon since our first hike down the length of the canyon just about ten years ago, and I was looking forward to returning! I left from work on Thursday afternoon and made my way to Indian Creek Country for the evening where I found a campsite and watched a colorful sunset on the surrounding cliffs while waiting for Dave and Jared to arrive.

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Moab’s Old Mail Trail: Mill Creek to South Mesa

Moab Meanderings | Saturday & Sunday, February 24-25, 2024

After spending a couple of days searching for rock art along the Pahranagat Trail in Nevada last week, I decided to stay a little closer to home this weekend to spend some time near Moab before it really starts getting too busy around there. Earlier this month after Diane and I had hiked a short section of Moab’s Old Mail Trail along the rim of Mill Creek, I became very interested in learning more about this route and started doing some research into it. Although I wasn’t able to find very much information about it, I think I was able to find enough to try my hand at tracing this historic route from Mill Creek to South Mesa. I really didn’t have much information to go on besides some broad locations, vague newspaper articles, the segment of the existing trail and some educated guesses on my part, so I may not have gotten it all correct. But even if I am completely wrong with my guesses, this turned out to be a very nice hike and a great way to spend the day in the backcountry. That said, if anyone out there has more information about the route of the Old Mail Trail, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

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Moab Meanderings: Moab Area Rock Art XLVII

Moab Winter Solstice Weekend 2024

( ЯR ) The Rimrocker Trail: Montrose to Moab

The Twists and Turns of Salt Creek Canyon

Moab’s Old Mail Trail: Mill Creek to South Mesa