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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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The Carbon Corridor: A Few Evenings Around Price

Monday – Thursday, May 6-9, 2024

After spending the weekend in Salt Lake City with Diane, we returned home for a normal day of work on Monday and then I drove back up to Price afterwards since I would be spending the rest of the week attending the annual Utah Geographic Information Council (UGIC) Conference, which was being held in the Carbon Corridor this year. Of course, during my drive to Price I took a detour off of the highway into the very northern reaches of the San Rafael Swell so I could go on a short hike and a scenic drive before continuing on to my hotel for the night. There had been a consistent and strong cold wind blowing all day which made the hiking a bit chilly this evening and it offered a preview of what the weather would have in store for the remainder of the week!

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Jurassic National Monument

Cleveland – Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry | Friday, May 3, 2024

This weekend Diane and I headed up to Salt Lake City so we could attend a pair of concerts put on by Imminence & The Amity Affliction, which are a couple of our favorite bands that we’ve been looking forward to seeing. Of course, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get in a little hiking along the way to break up the drive to the big city, so we took a detour off the highway to spend a couple hours visiting the Cleveland – Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry at Jurassic National Monument, which is well known for containing the densest concentration of Jurassic dinosaur fossils ever found. Jurassic National Monument is a relatively new designation as it officially came into existence back in 2019 with the signing of the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, which also created a number of Wilderness Areas around the San Rafael Swell. I’ve been meaning to make my way over to this area for a long time, so I was glad to have finally made it!

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Five Years Later: Nine Mile Canyon 2023

Saturday & Sunday, December 9-10, 2023

Diane hasn’t been able to join me on a weekend trip for a little while now, so when she got her schedule a few months back and saw that she had this weekend off we made plans to spend some time in one of our favorite places that for some reason we had not been back to in quite a while. It’s hard for me to believe, but it’s been over five years (has it really been that long!?) since the last time Diane and I spent any time exploring Nine Mile Canyon together and we were definitely overdue for a return visit! We left home early on Saturday morning, drove to Wellington and then spent the remainder of the weekend searching for Rock Art in and around the canyon. We revisited some sites we have been to before, but we also found plenty of new stuff along the way, too. Here are some photos of what we saw this weekend…

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Nine Mile Canyon 2018

Diane’s Birthday Weekend | Saturday & Sunday, October 20-21, 2018

Since it was Diane’s birthday was on Saturday and she wanted to spend the weekend in Nine Mile Canyon, that’s what we did! It actually worked out great since neither of us had been there yet this year and I like to try to get there at least once each year. We left home early on Saturday morning, stopped at the gas station in Wellington and then headed right into the canyon to see what we could find. There was nothing in particular that I was looking for on this trip, so we just drove slowly through the canyon and kept an eye out to see what we could find. It’s really amazing that no matter how many times I have driven through this canyon we were still able to find quite a few new petroglyphs and pictographs, and even a couple ruins. We spent all day in the canyon and then returned to Wellington where we took a little break from camping and spent the night in a hotel. Then on Sunday morning we were back in the canyon for a few more hours before heading back home. It was a great time! Here are plenty of photos from the weekend.

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