cedar mesa

I took the entire month of May to play in the high desert. I left Kentucky April 29th, my first destination being Cedar Mesa and Bears Ears NM. I backpacked some of the lesser traveled Grand Gulch tributaries. Flowing water and greenery everywhere. Next stop was back to an old favorite, Long...

The SEUG Circuit As detailed earlier, I am starting a new position in early-mid June. As such, I gave myself the gift of time to packraft and walk to connect the four national park units that comprise the South East Utah Group. Connecting the parks and seeing the lands in between allowed me...

Although I had been carrying plenty of water, I hoped that I'd be able to refill my bottles at Lake Canyon. The dirt road from the highway out to Aladdins Lamp Pass used to skirt the edge of the canyon, but it has now completely collapsed and 4WD drivers now need to take a detour further south...

A photo trip exploring the Slickhorn Canyons on Cedar Mesa, visited pretty much every branch .... April 2022........

Plans to backpack thwarted by some great Final Four Basketball, Lori and I took a leisurely sightseeing tour of Hovenweep, Natural Bridges, and Cedar Mesa. No pics of Hovenweep visiting the Towers and Lowry Pueblo on April 4. April 5: A hike down into White Canyon and Armstrong Canyon viewing...

Part 1 of the trip report here Part 2 of the trip report here Part 3 of the trip report here I had, so far, covered 188 miles over 15 days (13 hiking days). ----- I woke up on a lovely, sunny morning to an incredible panoramic vista of the Cedar Mesa canyon network spread out before me, from...

November 6 - November 9, 2019 While organizing our photos from this trip, I realized this was the fourth time Blake and I had been in the far southeastern portion of Utah in 2019. And I can say it was probably our favorite. While we did get in one well-established hike (Lower Fish Creek), all...

Logistics Start/end: Todie Canyon trailhead / Sheiks Canyon trailhead (could be done in either direction, with or without a shuttle) Mileage: ~19 miles Difficulty: class 3 Navigation: Map/GPS may be useful. No signage in the canyons. Filterable water: seasonal in Grand Gulch other than the...

This camping trip was destined to happen sooner or later. (A little insight): 2 years ago we were planning on spending time at Starr Springs CG (at the base of Mt Hillers in the Henryy Mts) after a beautiful week at House Rock Valley rd on the Utah /AZ border. We drove up Cottonwood rd to...

March 18-20, 2018 There was a huge difference in weather between my spring break this year and my spring break last year. Last year was sunny and a bit warmer than normal. So you likely can imagine what this year's was like. My wife, @Jessica, and I headed down to Cedar Mesa Sunday March 18 to...

April 2015. I drove down to Cedar Mesa, intending to hike the class Fish/Owl loop. I stopped by the ranger station to collect my permit. The road to Fish and Owl, the kindly volunteer ranger told me, was impassible. Too much wet clay. Fortunately, I had thrown my third-edition Kelsey book in my...

With snow putting an end to the Colorado alpine backpacking with which I have so recently and completely fallen in love, I thought I'd take a few days and see what backpacking in Utah had to offer. I've never visited Utah before at all, so when I saw a nice stretch of weather forecasted between...

Continued from A Week in Cedar Mesa's Canyons, Part 1 3/21/16 Alone. It’s not for everyone but I can’t say I’ve ever minded. It makes decision making a lot easier and certainly changes the experience. So when I found myself in that condition after a few days of adventuring with friends I...

So there I was, cruising south on Highway 6 in the LED spaceship, about 30 miles south of Wellington. After my last solo trip I decided to get back on the podcast bandwagon and I was totally entertained by season 1 of Serial. But a nagging thought kept popping to the foreground. I do not want to...

When @Blake Merrell recently found some free time on his schedule and reached out to see if I wanted to shoot down south for a quick overnight trip, I said, "Sure!" At first we were looking at San Rafael Swell, but at the last minute, I suggested Cedar Mesa and it was ultimately agreed upon...

So we started out at 4:00 AM on Thursday April 9 to drive down to Cedar Mesa. After stopping for gas and breakfast in Hanksville we made it the Kane Gulch Ranger Station. After picking up our permit we headed to the Fish & Owl Trail Head. From the Ranger Station it's a mile further south on...

This last weekend I went and did part of Ashdown Gorge. Due to time restraints we were unable to do the whole hike. But the part that we did do was worth it. We saw Flanagan's Arch part way up the canyon. The trail head starts up by Brian Head Utah and goes down past Cedar Breaks then...

Saturday - Monday, February 14-16, 2015 Diane and I spent Valentine's Day and the long President's Day weekend on Cedar Mesa for our very first camping trip of the year. We setup our base-camp at the Natural Bridges National Monument campground and enjoyed the beautiful spring-like weather all...

Joey and I headed out for a short trip into Grand Gulch. All missed out, weather was like end of April....excellent: went in via Coyote Canyon and out of Bullet Canyon via side canyon. Found a nice small ruin, with actually no sign of ever being visited. Here are a few pic:

Oldie but a goodie, easy day hike or camp and explore canyon. Day permit required, in season.