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Dinosaur Stomping Ground

Sunday, January 15, 2017

I guess I’m not having much luck in Utah this year since both day trips I’ve been on so far have been shrouded in fog. When I checked the weather forecast for this weekend, it seemed that Sunday was going to be the nicer of two days, so I planned to stay home on Saturday and then go hiking on Sunday. It actually turned out that Saturday was the better of the two days since Sunday was foggy and cooler with some light rain and snow. It was pretty much opposite of what was predicted. We left home later than usual on Sunday morning since the fog and chance of rain was supposed to dissipate by 11:00am. However, the fog and low clouds were still around at the end of our hike later in the afternoon.

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San Rafael Desert

Monday, January 2, 2017

Since I stayed close to home the past two days, I decided that wanted to venture over the state line into Utah today, but I still didn’t want to travel too far. It’s a pretty short and easy drive from Grand Junction to Green River, so I thought I’d head south from there on the Green River Road to revisit some sites I haven’t been to in many years and also try to stop at a few new ones. I contacted Marty on Saturday evening to see if he was free, and then we made plans to meet in Green River at 7:30 this morning. As I was getting close to Green River on I-70 I could see that the Gunnison Valley was filled with a thick fog and I thought that this might make things interesting for us. After meeting up with Marty and topping off my fuel tank we headed south into the fog on the Green River Road.

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Jeep Arch (Gold Bar Arch)

Christmas Weekend in Moab | Monday, December 26, 2016

On Monday morning we checked out of our hotel in Moab and followed the Colorado River on the Potash Road until we reached the trailhead for Culvert Canyon (Dragonfly Canyon, Cameltoe Canyon) just before the mouth of Gold Bar Canyon. Our destination this morning was a short hike with some elevation gain up to Jeep Arch (Gold Bar Arch). I vaguely recalled seeing this arch about eight years ago when I took my Jeep Cherokee on the Golden Spike Trail, and I was looking forward to getting a closer look today.

Christmas in Arches 2016

Christmas Day | Sunday, December 25, 2016

Since it’s become our annual tradition, Diane and I would again spend Christmas Day hiking in Arches National Park. (Previous trip reports from 2015 and 2014.) Overnight it had rained pretty hard in Moab and the forecast was also calling for snow. When we left the hotel before sunrise there was still no snow and the ground. However, as we drove into the park it did start to snow pretty hard and would continue to do so until we reached Landscape Arch in Devil’s Garden. It was very windy and cold out during this hike, and even though the sun would come out later in the morning and the temperature would rise a little, the wind kept blowing making it feel much colder out than it really was.

Island in the Sky

Christmas Weekend in Moab | Saturday. December 24, 2016

On Saturday morning, Diane and I left home and headed down to Moab so we could spend Christmas Day in Arches National Park like we do every year. Since the holiday fell on a weekend this year, we decided to spend the entire weekend around Moab starting with a visit to the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park on Saturday. While Diane has been to The Maze and Needles Districts a bunch of times with me, she had actually never visited the Island in the Sky, which happens to be the most accessible of the three. We would spend the day visiting most of the overlooks and going on a few short hikes.