Moab Winter Weekend | Saturday – Monday, December 23-25, 2023
After spending last weekend exploring the sandstone fins on the east side of the Colorado River in the Sand Flats Recreation Area, it was time for me to head over to Arches National Park for the extended Christmas weekend. While I usually only spend Christmas Day in Arches and then bounce around the desert canyons surrounding Moab for the rest of the holiday weekend, this year I wanted to spend the entire three days within the park. Unfortunately, Diane would not be joining me this year since she was scheduled ...
Monday, June 12, 2023
After spending the weekend along the Dolores River near Gateway, I had taken this Monday off from work so I could return to Arches National Park for another short hike into Cordova Canyon. This time I wouldn’t be hiking alone and would be joining up with the Cordova family for whom the canyon is named. Last spring I was contacted by Gabe Cordova after he had come across my recent Trip Report from Salt Wash and Cordova Canyon while researching and planning a trip for him and his family to come out and visit his great-grandparents ...
Easter | Sunday, April 9, 2023
For a change, I actually stayed home most of this weekend to get some stuff done around the house and relax for a bit. It’s a rare occurrence, but sometimes I need a little break from camping and hiking. However, after being home all day on Saturday I was already ready to get back outdoors and I did end up getting out to hike for a couple of hours on Easter morning. I left early on Sunday without any real plans on where I was headed, and I ended up in one of my ...
Saturday, February 18, 2023
I was originally planning to spend all three days this holiday weekend in the Bears Ears region, but a winter storm had come through earlier in the week that dropped some snow in the area, so I figured I had better postpone that trip for a little while since the roads would probably be a melting muddy mess. Although we got a fair bit of snow in Grand Junction from the same storm, it looked like Moab was mostly spared from new snow, so on Saturday morning I decided to head that direction for one last ...
Moab Winter Weekend | Moab Area Rock Art XXXIV
Saturday & Sunday, December 24-25, 2022
Christmas is here once again, which means that it was time for Diane and I to continue our annual tradition of spending Christmas Day in Arches National Park. This would be my fifteenth year visiting Arches around the yuletide holiday and Diane has been joining me for the past nine of those years on Christmas Day. Since Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, Diane and I headed down to Moab on Saturday morning and we did a little exploring around the area before spending ...
Arches National Park | Saturday, April 23, 2022
Recently I realized that it’s been a while since I last explored the backcountry of Arches National Park and I was definitely overdue for a return. After a winter hike down Lower Salt Wash Canyon a couple years ago I’ve been interested in exploring the upper reaches of Salt Wash and a recent Trip Report from Dennis finally gave me the motivation I needed to get back out to that area. I was all set to leave after work on Friday afternoon like I usually do, but a storm system was moving ...
Christmas Day | Saturday, December 25, 2021
It’s Christmastime again, which means that it’s also time for our annual Christmas in Arches visit! This year we were already staying at a hotel in Moab on Friday and Saturday nights since the holiday fell on a weekend, so I thought it would be a good idea to get up early on Saturday morning for our traditional hike to Landscape Arch. This way we could watch the first light of the day strike the arch at sunrise while we made sure it was still standing after another year. Afterwards I planed to ...
Arches National Park | Moab Area Rock Art XXXVII
Friday & Saturday, February 19-20, 2021
This weekend I wanted to take it a little easier and to be home on Sunday since I’ve been out in the backcountry every weekend this year, and there were a few things I needed to get done around the house. Since I needed to stay closer to home I thought that this would be a good opportunity to finally hike through Lower Courthouse Wash in Arches National Park before the park really starts to get busy in a couple of weeks. Although I’ve hiked ...
Christmas Day | Friday, December 25, 2020
Since Christmas Day fell on a Friday this year, I had booked a hotel room in Moab so we could spend the entire weekend in the area. Of course, this was before COVID struck and changed everything. We had considered cancelling these reservations and figuring something else to do this weekend, but in the end we decided to carry on with our plans. Early on Friday morning Diane and I left home and headed straight for Arches National Park, like we do every year. We drove all the way through the park and ...
Christmas Day | Wednesday, December 25, 2019
It’s Christmas time again and that means it’s time for our annual Christmas trip to Arches National Park! We left home early on Wednesday morning and headed west into Utah during the tail end of a winter storm that left a little snow, ice and fog in its wake. This slowed down our drive just a little bit, but we still made it to Arches in about two hours. We headed straight to the Devils Garden Trailhead so we could start off the day with our annual hike to Landscape Arch to make ...
New Year’s Day | Tuesday, January 1, 2019
To be honest, I never thought I would be visiting Delicate Arch in Arches National Park ever again since it’s become a very busy place over the past few years. However, there was a perfect storm of events that allowed Diane and I to watch the first sunset of 2019 at Delicate Arch with our friend Jared and absolutely no one else around! When I saw that the road into Arches National Park was closed on Monday morning because of a snowstorm and there was no money to plow and maintain it ...
Christmas Day | Tuesday, December 25, 2018
On Christmas morning Diane and I woke up early and drove over to Arches National Park so we could continue our annual tradition of hiking to Landscape Arch and making sure that it is still standing for another year! If you are interested in checking out our previous Christmas trips, you can find those here: [] [] [] []. We arrived at the park just as the sun was coming up for the day so I stopped a few times to take photos as we drove to the trailhead in the Devils Garden.
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Friday – Saturday, December 14-15, 2018
Salt Wash begins its journey near Thompson Springs at the southern end of the Book Cliffs just east of Sego Canyon. From there it meanders generally south across Yellow Cat Flat and joins up with Lost Spring Canyon inside the boundary of Arches National Park. This desert wash eventually passes by the Wolfe Ranch near the popular trailhead for Delicate Arch as it enters Cache Valley and then carves a deep canyon through Dry Mesa just east of The Windows before finally reaching the Colorado River. I have studied this particular canyon on maps ...
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Back on our annual Christmas trip to Arches in December, Diane and I had planned to explore Herdina Park after our morning hike to Landscape Arch, but unfortunately all of the snow on the ground prevented us from doing much else that day. Today I hoped to finally explore more of Herdina Park on my own.
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Christmas Day | Monday, December 25, 2017
On Christmas morning Diane and I got up early, had some breakfast, loaded up the Jeep and then headed into Arches National Park for our annual Christmas tradition of hiking to Landscape Arch to make sure it’s still standing for another year. If you are interested, you can see our previous trips here: [] [] []. During our drive through the park to the Devil’s Garden Trailhead we caught a pretty nice sunrise from a few overlooks along the way.
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Moab Area Rock Art XXX | Saturday, May 6, 2017
Have you ever spent a day in Devil’s Garden within Arches National Park and not seen another person? That’s a pretty difficult thing to do, even during the winter when we usually visit this area, but it’s pretty much impossible to do during the busiest season of the year! So when I heard that Arches would be closing the Devil’s Garden trailhead for a month because of road construction I knew that it would be the perfect time to visit the area to search for a historic Denis Julien inscription ...
Moab Area Rock Art XXIV | Sunday, April 16, 2017
This year for Easter I decided to head towards Moab for a day hike. I usually try to avoid the Moab area during Easter Jeep Safari week, but I figured that most people would be on their way out of town today and I was planning on hiking somewhere that doesn’t see a lot of traffic anyway. My suspicions were confirmed as I was driving south from Crescent Junction shortly after sunrise and saw a line of vehicles leaving town. This morning I would be hiking down Lower Sevenmile Canyon ...
Saturday, March 25, 2017
After spending the previous two weeks exploring the deserts of the southwest on our Honeymoon Adventure, it was time to get back to exploring places a little closer to home since I needed a little break from driving long distances. I wanted to go somewhere new to me and needed to get some decent hiking mileage in. It had been a while since I had done a longer hike and I was planning a very long one for the following weekend and I needed to make sure I would be up for it!
After some thought ...
Christmas Day | Sunday, December 25, 2016
Since it’s become our annual tradition, Diane and I would again spend Christmas Day hiking in Arches National Park. (Previous trip reports from and .) Overnight it had rained pretty hard in Moab and the forecast was also calling for snow. When we left the hotel before sunrise there was still no snow and the ground. However, as we drove into the park it did start to snow pretty hard and would continue to do so until we reached Landscape Arch in Devil’s Garden. It was very windy and cold out during this ...
Saturday, March 5, 2016
This weekend Diane and I decided not to stray too far from home and made our way out to the Dome Plateau area northeast of Arches National Park to do a little exploring. We started out by driving up onto Winter Camp Ridge to check on a geocache I placed here a few years back. It’s also an area we just enjoy visiting.
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Saturday, February 27, 2016
About three years ago I went on a ranger-guided tour of the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park with my friend Jackson to check out the area for the first time. Since I was in a group of about 25 people that day I didn’t bother to pull out my camera and take many photos and I knew that I would want to come back on my own another day. Today, Diane and I decided to get a permit and head back to the Fiery Furnace so we could explore the area on our own.
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Christmas Day | Friday, December 25, 2015
The early morning drive from Grand Junction to Arches National Park on Christmas morning was a bit slow since it had started to snow overnight and would continue to do so throughout the day. I wasn’t feeling 100% after coming down with a cold earlier in the week, so we decided to head straight to the Devil’s Garden for our annual Christmas hike to Landscape Arch to make sure that it is still standing after another year. I’ve hiked this trail in the winter for the past 8 years but this time it ...
Saturday, February 21, 2015
This weekend Diane and I went on another day trip to Arches National Park so we could hike the Devils Garden Primitive Loop. It has been a number of years since I last hiked the loop so I was looking forward to getting back, and this would be Diane’s first time hiking beyond Landscape Arch. We left bright and early on Saturday morning and made it to the Devils Garden trailhead shortly after the sun had come up. Good thing we weren’t planning on photographing the sunrise this morning since it was still pretty overcast when ...
Christmas Day | Thursday, December 25, 2014
If you’ve been following my blog for more than a year, you might already know that I have an annual tradition where I spend Christmas Day in Arches National Park every year. This year would be the first time Diane would be joining me on this annual trip. There was a snowstorm in the forecast for Christmas Day in Grand Junction and Moab, so I made sure that we left very early in the morning so that we could beat the storm and would hopefully only have to drive through it once. The ...
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Winter Camp Ridge is an obscure place located north of Arches National Park near The Highlands. Most people bypass this area as they are heading elsewhere in the region, but I always seem to be drawn back to this location every so often. My first time here was when I was out exploring the backroads of the Yellow Cat area and took the sandy two-track onto Winter Camp Ridge to see where it went. The road ended up bringing me to the Arches National Park boundary not too far from Delicate Arch. Since that first trip ...
Saturday, March 1, 2014
When Diane and I woke up Saturday morning we had no plans for the day. We wanted to do something outsite but the weather was calling for rain all day. In the end we decided to ignore the weather reports since it looked nice outside and took a last minute trip just over the stateline into Utah so I could check on a geocache that I had placed a few years back. It’s in a remote area that sees little traffic so very few people have actually found it. It had been a while since I ...
Saturday – Monday, February 15-17, 2014
For the long President’s Day weekend, Diane and I decided to spend the weekend around Moab. We had booked a hotel room a few weeks earlier and had no idea how nice the temperature would be this weekend. Unfortunately, thanks to the three-day holiday weekend and warm weather, Moab was a bit busier than it normally is this time of the year.
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Christmas Day | Wednesday, December 25, 2013
It’s been a tradition of mine to head down to Arches National Park around Christmas time each year so I can visit the park in the winter. This year I had no holiday plans, so I decided to visit on Christmas Day. I was originally planning on going by myself, but a few weeks before the trip I found out that my friend Yvonne was going to be in Moab over the same time, so we made plans to meet up and do some hiking together.
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Monday – Tuesday, March 11-12, 2013
Long story short, I had ended up with two passes for a ranger guided tour of the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park on Tuesday and had taken the day off from work so I could go. The weather in Moab was looking good so I headed down after work on Monday and setup my campsite along the Colorado River just outside of town. I grabbed a burger at the Moab Brewery for dinner and then took a drive up Long Canyon as the sun was setting for the evening. It was a beautiful ...
Saturday & Sunday, December 15-16, 2012
Each year Amanda and I take a trip to Arches National Park around Christmas time. It’s become kind of a tradition for us. This year we planned the trip two weekends before Christmas because of Amanda’s work schedule closer to the holiday. Some years we only go down for a day trip, but this year we got a hotel room in Moab and spent the full weekend.
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Moab Area Rock Art XIX | Sunday, January 15, 2012
On Sunday I drove back to Moab to meet up with Marty again to do a little more exploring. I didn’t have any plans for the day in mind when I left home, so I thought we could just figure things out as we went. We ended up hiking an area within Arches National Park that I had not visited before. It was a nice area with some great views along the way. We even managed to come across a new petroglyph panel as we explored the area.
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Arches National Park
Sunday, December 18, 2011
For the past few years Amanda and I have kind of made it a tradition to head over to Arches National Park near the Christmas holiday. This year we were able to get down there the Sunday before. The first thing we do when we get to the park is drive over to Devils Garden and hike over to Landscape Arch, just to make sure it’s still there…it is!
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Friday – Sunday, May 6–8, 2011
After work on Friday I stopped home to finish loading the Jeep and then made my way to Arches National Park. I would be spending the weekend with a group of photographers from the Rocky Mountain forum on the Nature Photographer’s Network. Bret Edge was nice enough to setup the Spring Fling event for the group in Moab.
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Moab Area Rock Art VIII | Saturday, March 19, 2011
Saturday, the plan was to head to Arches for the day and hike the Devils Garden primitive loop. Afterwords we were hoping to stock around and get some photos of the Super Moon rising in the evening. Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy and overcast the entire day and it was pretty windy. We ended up hiking the loop and finding the petroglyphs near Dark Angel, but when we were done we drove back into town for some dinner and headed home instead of waiting for the moon to rise. It ...
Saturday, December 25, 2010 | Christmas Day
Christmas was here again, and that meant it was time for our annual Christmas trip to Arches National Park. As usual, we started out with a hike to Landscape Arch to make sure it was still standing…..it was.
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
Yesterday Amanda and I headed to Arches National Park for the sole purpose of hiking to Delicate Arch. We left home early and ended up staring the hike to the arch shortly after 9:00am. When we reached the arch, we were lucky enough to have it to ourselves for a little while. It seems that the last few times I have headed to Arches, the skies have been nice and overcast for me, and yesterday was no exception. It wasn’t until we were heading back down from the arch that the clouds finally started to clear ...
Monday, February 15, 2010
My goal for President’s Day was to head out to Moab and to find some geocaches. However, there was more snow and ice around Moab than I had hoped for, which killed that idea, as I was not about to go digging in ice and snow looking for geocaches. I had started out on the Cotter Mine Road hoping to find some caches near the Monitor & Merrimac Buttes, but when I reached the turnoff, I quickly found out that it had not been traveled.
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Sunday, December 27, 2009
Heading to Arches National Park on the weekend closest to Christmas seems to be a tradition that Amanda and I are starting. Hopefully we can keep it up in the future!
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Sunday, April 25, 2009
On Sunday, Amanda and I got a really early start. We were both wide awake at 6am, so we broke down our camp and were on the trail before 7am. Our destination this morning was to run the full 3D trail, so we made our way over to Hidden Canyon.
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Saturday, March 21, 2009
Having been to Arches National Park a number of times, it was strange that we had never made it over to the most famous arch located there; Delicate Arch. We set out this morning to make the hike to Delicate Arch. Here’s a few photos from our hike.
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Saturday, December 27, 2008
On Saturday, Amanda and I spent our day doing some easy hikes in Arches National Park. While I have been there a number of times before, there are a few famous sights that I have never made it to before. Mostly because there are too many people at those areas during the spring and fall. During the winter, there are a lot less people in the park, so it is a perfect time to check out some of the more popular sights.
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Saturday, May 10, 2008
On Saturday, Amanda and I spent the day at Arches National Park to do some wheeling, hiking, and sight-seeing. She had never been there before and wanted to go for her birthday.
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Here’s a few pictures I took at Arches National Park when I visited on Sunday.
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