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McCarty Trail

New Year’s Eve | Sunday, December 31, 2017

Well this is it! My last hike and trip report for 2017. It was another great year for getting out and exploring and I’m already making plans to make 2018 even better! For my last hike of the year I decided to stay closer to home and go for a hike into the Dominguez – Escalante National Conservation Area. Last summer while we were going for a drive through Escalante Canyon Diane spotted a trailhead sign along the road for the McCarty Trail which I had not noticed or heard of before, so I added it to my list to come back and hike another time. Today seemed like a good day to finally check it out.

Christmas Moab Weekend

Moab Area Rock Art XXXII | Saturday & Sunday, December 23-24, 2017

Since we were planning on spending our Christmas in Arches National Park like we do every year, we headed over to Moab on Saturday morning so we could spend the entire holiday weekend in the area. Earlier in the week when I was finalizing our rough plans for the trip I was expecting that there would still be none to minimal snow on the ground for our trip because even though there was a winter storm predicted toward the end of the week, I really didn’t think it would affect the area too much. Boy, was I wrong! Well, actually I was right about the Grand Junction area since we didn’t get any snow that stuck around, however, the storm seemed to be centered right over the area surrounding Moab and dumped about 6-10 inches there! We tried to continue on with our original plans at first, but we ended up having to cancel or change some of the hikes since they would have been too dangerous with all the snow and ice on the ground, even with our microspikes. In the end I acted as a tour guide for Diane as we revisited many easily accessible rock art sites that I hadn’t been to in a while.

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Tenmile! Canyon of Mystery

Moab Area Rock Art XXXI | Sunday, December 17, 2017

After spending Saturday in the Book Cliffs with Diane, I headed over to Tenmile Canyon on Sunday morning, which is a little ways southwest of Crescent Junction near the Green River, to do a little exploring on my own. There might be some of you out there that recognize the title of this trip report is very similar in name to a guidebook written by the late Jack Bickers (Tenmile! Nearby Canyon of Mystery) in 1991. Well, that book has been collecting dust on my shelf for almost ten years now, and ever since I got it I’ve wanted to visit and explore Tenmile Canyon. Of course, when I originally bought the book my main intention was to drive the trail in the canyon to the Green River with my Jeep, but these days I’d rather be hiking. I’ve tried planning trips to Tenmile Canyon before, but something has always prevented me from making it out there, whether it was weather or a last minute change of plans to go somewhere else. I finally decided to make this trip a priority and headed out there to do a little hiking. Better late than never, I guess!

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Book Cliffs Loop

Book Cliffs Rock Art IV | Saturday, December 16, 2017

Since there really hasn’t been any snow to speak of in the area so far this year, I thought it would be a good time to go for a drive up into the Book Cliffs just over the state line in Utah so we could visit some rock art sites that I haven’t been to in a while and that Diane hadn’t seen before. We left home on Saturday morning and took I-70 to the Westwater Exit where we headed north into the Book Cliffs following along Westwater Creek. Unfortunately, even though temperatures were mild, the sky was pretty overcast for much of the day, so I didn’t take too many photos from our journey, aside from of the rock art and a couple of times when the sun did briefly peek out. So if you aren’t interested in seeing a bunch of photos of rock art, you might just want to skip this trip report…

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A Quick Nine Mile Canyon Visit

Monday, November 20, 2017

A few years ago while we were exploring Nine Mile Canyon with our friend Dennis, Diane had spotted some nice petroglyphs high above the road that none of us had seen before. We didn’t have time that day to climb up to them for a closer look, so I marked them on my GPS and we planned to return another day. On our way back home from Salt Lake City this weekend we spent a few hours in Nine Mile Canyon to break up the drive and decided to finally climb up to those petroglyphs we had seen from below. We also visited a few other locations in the canyon before continuing our drive back home and we found some other nice petroglyph panels, too. Here are a couple of photos from our quick visit to Nine Mile Canyon.

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Tag: ute

McCarty Trail

Christmas Moab Weekend

Tenmile! Canyon of Mystery

Book Cliffs Loop

A Quick Nine Mile Canyon Visit