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Tag: white rim sandstone

White Rim Trail: Mineral Bottom to Candlestick Camp

Island in the Sky | Friday – Sunday, December 5-7, 2025

Although it’s been over three years since the last time I visited the Island in the Sky District within Canyonlands National Park, it certainly has not been for a lack of trying. Over the past few years I have booked the Candlestick Camp on the White Rim at least two or three different times since it’s the only campsite along the White Rim Trail that I have not stayed at before, but each time the weather or ice on the switchbacks of the Mineral Bottom Road made me change those plans. Over the summer I decided to try again and booked the campsite for the first weekend in December with hopes that the weather would cooperate this time, and then I invited my friend Jackson along so he could get his first taste of the White Rim with his new 4Runner. As the weekend neared there was a winter storm system that impacted the areas around Grand Junction and Moab so we weren’t sure what the road situation was going to be like when we reached the top of the switchbacks above Mineral Bottom, but after leaving work on Friday and making our way out there we were happy to find that this area had not been impacted and the switchbacks were clear and dry- so down we went!

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The White Rim to Monument Basin

Friday – Sunday, February 4-6, 2022

For the past two years I have spent the first weekend in February exploring the White Rim in Canyonlands National Park. You can find those two Trip Reports here: White Crack Trail to The Confluence & Airport Tower to Monument Basin. I’ve had good weather and great views on each of those trips so I decided to do it one more time this year and grabbed a camping permit for Gooseberry and Airport back in November before the prices of backcountry permits were raised, so this was going to be my last trip at the old price. I’ve spent a lot of time exploring from the White Rim Trail over the years and am actually running out of places I want to check out, but one place I’ve really wanted to hike down to for a long time is Monument Basin, so I figured this trip would be the perfect opportunity to finally give it a try. I knew Jared would be very interested in this hike, so I made sure to invite him along, too.

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The White Rim

Canyonlands National Park’s 50th Birthday
Friday – Sunday, September 12-14, 2014

So far I’ve had a great year exploring many new areas of Canyonlands National Park. I was finally able to backpack through Salt Creek Canyon in The Needles, which had been a longtime goal of mine and one of the main reasons I started backpacking in the first place. Then I spent a nice weekend in The Maze with Diane and made it to the Maze Overlook and also discovered what a wonderful place Millard Canyon is. We even made it to The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon on that trip so that Diane was able to view some of the magnificent rock art there for the first time. With all these great trips this year I thought I would try my luck again at completing the White Rim Road in the Island in the Sky, too.

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