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Tag: wilderness

Ruins of Cedar MesaRuins of Cedar Mesa

Ruins of Cedar Mesa

President’s Day Weekend | Saturday – Monday, February 17 – 19, 2018

This year for President’s Day Weekend Diane and I decided to head back down to Cedar Mesa for our first visit to Bears Ears National Monument of the year. We ended up spending most of the weekend exploring canyons carved into Cedar Mesa and visiting ruins that I hadn’t been to in a number of years, plus a few new ones. We also made a detour over to Montezuma Canyon on Monday morning before a strong winter storm moved into the area and chased us back home in the early afternoon.

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Revisiting The Owl PictographRevisiting The Owl Pictograph

Revisiting The Owl Pictograph

Saturday, February 3, 2018

After spending the previous weekend exploring the Coyote Buttes in Arizona, it was time for me to stay a little closer to home and take things easy for a change. When Diane and I had visited the San Rafael Reef a few weekends ago we were hoping to stop by a very cool pictograph of an owl in the Book Cliffs on our way home, but we ran out of time and daylight and didn’t get the chance. I guess we spent too much time in Chute Canyon! I had visited this owl pictograph back in 2011 and have wanted to return for a while and Diane was very interested in seeing it for the first time, so I figured that checking it out and exploring the surrounding canyon would make for a nice half-day adventure.

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Coyote Buttes NorthCoyote Buttes North

Coyote Buttes North

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument
Sunday, January 28, 2018

After spending an amazing day in Coyote Buttes South on Saturday, I slept well overnight in the Stateline Campground along House Rock Valley Road and woke up early to start hiking into Coyote Buttes North on Sunday morning. I didn’t have any specific location planned to photograph at sunrise, so I just started hiking about an hour before sunrise and figured that I would just take photos wherever I was when the sun finally came over the distant horizon. Nautical dawn was just beginning as I left the Wire Pass Trailhead and I wouldn’t need to use my headlamp for very long.

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Chute CanyonChute Canyon

Chute Canyon

The Edge of The Swell II | Sunday, January 14, 2018

After spending Saturday exploring northern canyons of the San Rafael Reef, we headed further south on Sunday morning near Temple Mountain and Goblin Valley to hike another canyon that cuts through the Reef. A few years back Diane and I had hiked Crack Canyon and really enjoyed it, so I thought it would be a good day to come back and hike it’s neighbor, Chute Canyon. Typically, these two canyons are linked together to make a nice long loop, but I’m actually glad we hiked them separately so we could spend plenty of time exploring each of them on their own.

CONTINUE READINGChute Canyon
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