Wednesday – Sunday, March 18-22, 2026
This year Dave, Jared and I decided to take it easier during our annual Spring Trip and eschewed our typical longer backpacking trip for car-camping and day-hiking on Cedar Mesa since we were worried about finding water in the canyons after the very dry winter the Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountains have experienced. This turned out to be a good decision for us since much of the Southwest was experiencing an unprecedented heat wave during the same time, and to be honest, I would not have been up for carrying a heavy pack ...
Friday – Sunday, March 13-15, 2026
Since Diane finished up her Radiation Therapy just about two weeks ago, we decided to get out on her first camping trip since she had surgery back at the beginning of October. We chose to spend the weekend mostly around Comb Ridge in Bears Ears National Monument so we could keep the hikes shorter and a bit easier for Diane if we needed to, but she really needed to get in some mileage and elevation during these hikes to help her get back into the swing of things since she is supposed to ...
Borderlands of the Bears Ears Country IV | Saturday – Monday, January 17-19, 2026
While I was originally hoping to take Diane out to the Pahranagat Valley over this extended holiday weekend, we found ourselves needing to stay closer to home for the time being, but I still wanted to go somewhere where Diane would be able to join me. She has recently started Radiation Therapy and is still not allowed to do much hiking, but after a little bit of thought I figured we could return to Comb Ridge and the surrounding country to go on some shorter ...
Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 15 | Thursday – Sunday, November 27-30, 2025
Back before Diane even knew she had a meningioma and would be having surgery in October we were hoping to return to the Dinétah in New Mexico this Thanksgiving, but with everything going on lately we switched gears and decided to return to the Bears Ears region instead since it’s a bit closer to home and a more important place to us. Up until about two weeks ago Diane was still planning to join me this holiday weekend and we were planning to stick to easier hikes like ...
Thursday – Sunday, September 18-21, 2025 | High CFS: 622 – Low CFS: 524
Although I certainly enjoy the early season spring-runoff river trips of summer, I think my favorite time to get out onto a desert river is during low-water at the end of the season in September. I guess I just enjoy the cooler temperatures, relaxing pace, minimal bugs and sandy campsites that are common at this time of the year. So when I realized earlier in the year that I had not been back on the San Juan River since 2019, I knew I wanted to get ...
Friday – Sunday, March 28-30, 2025
This weekend I met up with my friend Alan who was once again visiting the southwest from France for a couple of weeks this spring. Late last year while he was starting to plan out his trip we had made rough plans to hike together to a Barrier Canyon Style pictograph panel that is found in the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, so that’s where we ended up starting our weekend off when we met up at a campsite late on Friday afternoon. After our rough drive and hike to the pictographs on ...
Friday – Sunday, February 21-23, 2025
After returning home from northeastern Arizona on Monday, I decided to take it easier this weekend and return to the canyons of Cedar Mesa to walk a few sections of the canyons. While I was hoping to find a few new ruins and rock art sites along the way, I also took the time to return to a canyon I have hiked many times before so I could revisit some sites that I hadn’t been back to in over a decade and wanted to see again. The weather was very nice all weekend, perfect ...
Friday – Sunday, December 6-8, 2024
Things didn’t quite go as I had planned this weekend. I was originally planning to spend the weekend along the western end of the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park and had reserved campsites for both Friday and Saturday nights. However, when I arrived at the top of the Mineral Bottom switchbacks on Friday afternoon I found that they were covered with ice and snow and I really wasn’t feeling like sliding down the road, so I called an audible and headed down to Indian Creek Country and The Needles instead. After making ...
Cedar Mesa Chronicles: Chapter 13 | Thursday – Sunday, November 28 – December 1, 2024
This year for the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend Diane and I returned to the landscape surrounding the Bears Ears and spent all four days wandering a selection of canyons and rims carved into Cedar Mesa and beyond. Our time was split between searching for new sites and revisiting sites that I hadn’t been back to in over a decade but were mostly new to Diane. We saw quite a bit more rock art this time around with only a few ruins scattered throughout our hikes ...
Friday – Sunday, November 22-24, 2024
This weekend I met up with a friend so we could explore some new places surrounding Bears Ears National Monument, although we did end up making our way up onto the edges of Cedar Mesa for a couple of short hikes, too. I left from work on Friday afternoon, grabbed dinner at Milt’s in Moab before they close for the winter, and then continued on towards Blanding where I stopped for an evening photo over Recapture Reservoir before finding a campsite just outside of town and getting to bed early. Then early on ...
