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Rock Art of the Book Cliffs X

Saturday & Sunday, January 4-5, 2025

I wanted to start the year off right on the first weekend of 2025, so I met up with a friend on Saturday morning and we spent the rest of the weekend together hiking in canyons that carved through the Book Cliffs in search of petroglyphs and pictographs. We found a lot of new rock art along the way and even stopped to revisit a couple sites that I hadn’t been back to in almost fifteen years which were nice to see again. While Saturday was mostly overcast all day with a couple of short-lived snow showers in the late morning and Sunday was completely clear and sunny, the cool temperatures throughout the weekend were great for hiking in. Here are some photos of the rock art we saw this weekend.

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Rock Art Along the Old Trappers’ Trail

Book Cliffs Rock Art VIII | Friday, August 30, 2024

After spending most of Monday hiking with a friend in the San Rafael Swell, we met up again on Friday morning in the Book Cliffs so we could spend a few hours visiting rock art sites along the Old Trappers’ Trail, which was a historic route in eastern Utah that travelled through the Book Cliffs to the Uinta Basin. While much of this rock art is located on private property and some of it is visible from the public road, my friend had secured us permission from the ranch to access their property so we could get a closer look at these images. After viewing and photographing the rock art in this area for most of the monrning, I returned to the Interstate and continued west to Green River where I grabbed lunch at Ray’s and then headed out to spend the rest of the weekend exploring the High Plateaus of Utah. Here are some photos from my morning along the Old Trappers’ Trail.

Rock Art of the San Rafael Swell XVIII

Monday, August 26, 2024

After my plans were washed out in the Book Cliffs on Sunday, I met up again with my friend in the San Rafael Swell on Monday morning so we could spend most of the day visiting and searching for some rock art sites. The storms that had been prevalent the previous week had all cleared up overnight and the weather forecast was looking very dry for the foreseeable future so we didn’t have to worry about any of that today, although it was now a bit hazy or smoky out. Many of the roads we drove throughout the day were in rough shape from all the recent rain, but thankfully they were all dry and we had no troubles getting around in my Jeep. Even though we didn’t find everything we were looking for today, we still had a nice time sauntering around the Swell and now I’m really looking forward to getting back out into the desert more often starting in just a few more weeks!

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The High Plateaus of Utah: Northern Trek

The Plateau Provence: Peaks & Plateaus of the Colorado Plateau, Part III
Friday – Sunday, July 19-21, 2024

After spending two weekends exploring the High Plateaus of Utah last summer, I have been looking forward to getting back out into that high country again this year and thought this weekend would be a good time to do so. This time I decided to head up into the northern region of the High Plateaus and planned to start at the edge of the Tavaputs Plateau before making my way westward to the Gunnison Plateau (San Pitch Mountains) while driving some of the backroads in the area and visiting a couple new highpoints along the way. My timing for this trip couldn’t have been much better since the weather forecast was predicting very wet and stormy weather throughout the mountains of Colorado the entire weekend, while it seemed that Central Utah was going to be staying mostly dry, aside from the typical afternoon thunderstorms. Just like last year, I had a great time exploring this region and am hoping to get down to the Southern Plateaus later in the summer.

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Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country

Saturday & Sunday, April 27-28, 2024

This weekend Diane and I headed down to the edges of Bears Ears National Monument so we could hike and search for rock art and ruins in some of the canyons along the borderlands of the monument. We were originally planning to leave after work on Friday, but rain was predicted for the area overnight and into the early morning, so instead we decided to leave early on Saturday morning and timed it so we would arrive after the weather was supposed to be over leaving cooler temperatures and partly cloudy skies behind. Our timing worked out perfectly! Although we would see a lot of interesting and unusual rock art this weekend, much of it was hard to see and photograph, so I’ll just share some of the better photos below.

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Tag: ute

Rock Art of the Book Cliffs X

Rock Art Along the Old Trappers’ Trail

Rock Art of the San Rafael Swell XVIII

The High Plateaus of Utah: Northern Trek

Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country