// Adventures and Photography from the Colorado Plateau, Rocky Mountains & Beyond
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
All day long there had been nice clouds floating through the sky, so when I finally left work in the late afternoon I thought it might be a good idea to take a short hike into Gold Star Canyon in the Colorado National Monument to photograph the sunset. I have been trying for years to get a nice photo at sunset from this location without success and I hoped that my luck would change this evening.
Leave a CommentMaze Memorial Weekend IV | Memorial Day Weekend
Friday – Monday, May 26-29, 2017
After spending the last three Memorial Day Weekends in and around The Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, this year we decided to skip visiting The Maze proper and stayed on top of The Orange Cliffs in Robbers Roost country. As usual, we left home after work on Friday evening and headed west into Utah. We stopped for a quick dinner and to fuel up the Jeep in Green River and then made our way to the Hans Flat Ranger Station to pickup our permit for the weekend. The wind was pretty brutal this evening and it really took a toll on my fuel mileage during the drive. There was a lot of sand blowing across the road to Hans Flat in places, but the sky and light was pretty nice during the drive. It looked like there was a good chance for one nice sunset before the clouds disappeared for the remainder of the weekend.
Leave a CommentTour of the Deserts | Honeymoon Adventure
Thursday & Friday, March 16-17, 2017
After spending the previous day driving from Tucson to Alamogordo and visiting the Three River Petroglyph Site, it was time to finally visit White Sands National Monument. I have long wanted to visit these white gypsum sand dunes located in the Tularosa Valley of southern New Mexico and made sure that this park would be a stop on our Honeymoon Adventure. We headed over to the Visitor Center early and arrived about 30 minutes before they opened at 9:00am so we could get one of the ten permits available for camping in the dunes that night. I’m glad we got there early, because when we arrived there were already four groups ahead of us waiting in line to get permits. One of the guys waiting in line told us that they had tried to get a permit the day before at noon and were told that the permits were all gone shortly after they opened because of Spring Break.
2 CommentsSaturday & Sunday, July 9-10, 2016
Since Diane and I won’t be able to get back into the outdoors for the rest of the month I wanted to do a quick and easy overnight backpacking trip in the mountains this weekend. I was looking for something close to home that wouldn’t be crowded and thought that Blaine Basin in the Sneffels Range of the San Juan Mountains would be a good option. We left home later than usual on Saturday morning and arrived at the Blue Lakes Trailhead around 11am. I was blown away by how many vehicles were at the trailhead! It was crazy! There were cars lined up and down the road pulled over any place they could find to park. At this point I was second guessing the trip because I wasn’t convinced that all of these people were headed to the Blue Lakes?
1 CommentThe Doll House | Memorial Day Weekend
Thursday – Monday, May 26-30, 2016
While crowds of people were lined up to get into Arches National Park and Island in the Sky this holiday weekend, Diane and I were back in The Maze District of Canyonlands National Park where we would only see a couple other people the entire time. This is why Diane and I have kept coming back back here for the past three years over Memorial Day weekend. Make sure to check out our previous trip reports from 2014 and 2015. This year we invited our friends Marty and Dave along to spend a few days down in The Doll House and the Land of Standing Rocks. It has been a few years since I last visited this area and I was looking forward to getting back and actually spending a few nights in The Doll House.
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