san rafael swell

Seems to me that many people do not like the country south of I 70 and west of the San Rafael Swell. Is there something to see? Yes indeed, one can find some interesting spots. Let me promote the area with some pictures. The whole long story: Western Slopes (in German) I will portion the report...

Early on the morning of Black Friday, my bro-in-law, Mark, and I loaded up some camping gear and left for an overnight exploration of the southwestern San Rafael Swell. It's the one part of the Swell I haven't been to much, but my to-do list for that area had grown enough to make a trip there...

I enjoyed a nice weekend out with just the guys--no kids, no dogs--in Cottonwood Wash along the northern San Rafael Reef. Chris, Mark, and I piled ourselves and our gear into my Jeep and left Price early in the evening. The road from Smith Cabin to Cottonwood Wash was in the worst shape I've...

Friday I got a last-minute invite from @Bill to head out to the Wedge to drink beer, ride bikes, and shoot sunset/lightning/sunrise. As soon as I got off work I showered, threw some gear in the Jeep, and met Bill just as he was finishing up some grocery shopping in Price. He had his dog, Moki...

"Black Box on Monday?" said Chris' text on Thursday. It started simply enough, and though we didn't do much planning together after that, everything came together nicely on Monday morning when Chris, Karin, and Katie met at my house and we got a late start driving into the San Rafael Swell...

Last weekend I took to the San Rafael Desert and did some mountain biking. I'd recently watched this video of biking at Saucer Basin and seen some photos of people riding near Bull Hollow, and I set out to ride in both areas myself. Saucer Basin was a lot of fun. I parked on the side of a...

I forced myself to go hiking this past weekend. I woke up on Saturday feeling lethargic, with the threat of bad weather looming. However, I had stayed home the previous weekend and I knew I'd regret doing so two weekends in a row. I got myself and the dogs ready and started out late for a day...

The semi-annual San Rafael geocaching event this spring was pretty low-key this year, but provided me some relaxing time to myself early in the week and some fun with friends on the weekend. For the past couple of years Dave has accompanied me early in the week before the events. This season...

Sunday was planned to hike Crack Canyon. We left a little after 8 and headed for Temple Mountain. We passed many camps on our way down. I was able to drive the Taco all the way in to the trailhead to make this hike a little shorter. There was a small camp and another car at the trailhead. We...

After two days of technical and non technical canyoneering I wanted something a little different. After a lot of thought I decided to visit an area I haven't been to since I was wee: The Upper San Rafael. Driving into the gorge from Buckhorn Draw was pretty sweet. I like how the BLM labelled...

A little over a week ago, my older daughters had their annual spring break from school, so, as we've made a tradition of doing, we headed south. This year, I took my family down to Goblin Valley. It was a first time visit for all of us. It would also provide a great opportunity to test out a...

This past weekend I was down in the Swell to teach with The University of Utah's Canyoneering courses. I managed to convince a friend of mine to take the class because we'd be teaching water canyon skills and we went down a bit early to do Zero Gravity before the class met up. The trip down...

Took the truck out for a drive Saturday down to Wild Horse Mesa. The drive down was nice, I passed by a lot of campers getting ready for Easter and others just enjoying the weekend. I couldn't believe all the people parked at Little Wild Horse trailhead. It surprised me even more to see a lot of...

Saturday & Sunday, March 29-30, 2014 The Original Trip Report on ADVENTR.CO I recently realized that I hadn't been out to the San Rafael Swell in quite some time and felt it was time to get back again. Diane had never been to the Swell before so I thought it would be nice to give her an...

I love the San Rafael Swell, it is so varied, from nice watery rivers to desolate hard sharp rock defiles. Eardley Canyon is in the middle eastern part of the Swell, and cuts it's way south on it's way to Straight Wash. The photo above (from 2008) is at the Big Pool, a short ways up the lower...

We went for hike in Saddle Horse Canyon located in the Sid's Mountain WSA, to find a geocache that was beside a huge pinnacle. We first had to hike down into North Salt Wash and cross a small stream into Saddle Horse. Start of the hike following an old road Mouth of Saddle Horse Canyon...

We headed out Friday afternoon, towing the tin turd tanker, arriving at The Wedge in time to find a spot and get camp setup before it got too dark. Steve and Jen got a later start than we did and arrived about dark, but had no problem getting their camp setup quickly. Then we all sat...

I am finally writing my Spring Fling trip report. First, this trip was postponed until October, it is now the Utah Oktoberfest trip. I flew into SLC on Friday Oct 11th. Immediately I grabbed my rental, a Ford SUV AWD. Clearance was fair but no Toyo truck. I headed out of town through SLCs...

I did these canyons last weekend (5/13-5/15). On the maps on this site it has Little Wild Horse Canyon mapped out, which was great, but it didn't have the loop with Bell Canyon on it. If you do the full loop it is 8 miles. It's a good 4-6 hr trip and you get two different feels in each canyon...

It's 2 PM on a Friday. I haven't been camping in 3 weeks, and I'm getting antsy. Work was starting to take its toll on me and I needed an escape. A few texts to some good friends Friday got some last minute plans rolling. We wanted something close by and relatively warm. The textversation...