After a long days drive through Navajo Nation, we took the short drive west into the Grand Canyon to take in the views… the “grand” views. Mom said she had been here once before but it was so smokey (due to a fire) that she could not see far into...
We drove into Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park to show Mom the sights as best we could in a half-day. Mom is still getting too winded at our altitude to go for any treks down the trails, but there are still a lot of things worth seeing right...
Our final park of the trip was Mesa Verde National Park where we stopped in the museum to take a tour of the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling and then a quick auto-toured of the various other cliff dwellings and sights. After a half-morning here, we planned to BBQ at...
In the morning, we quickly moved out to finally go check out the southern part of Canyonlands, known as the Needles section. We drove south into a head wind for 30 miles before turning west into yet another head wind for 30 more miles before making it into the park....
We departed Saturday afternoon with the aim to make it all the way into Moab, UT before 11pm where we would get a hotel room for the night. This didn’t work out so well with all hotels full when we arrived, and the 3 of us camping out in the...
Conor and I ran up to Rocky Mtn Ntnl Park on Monday to get in our first hike of the year. Our last hike together was in the snow so it is fitting that we start this year with a snow-hike as well. Sadly, I left my snow-shoes in California...
The Guadalupe Mountains is actually part of an ancient under-sea reef which just happened to be in the way as the mountains were being formed millions of year ago. As the mountains pushed up parts of this reef was exposed and is now the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. One sense...
Finally, I can check the box that I visited Carlsbad Caverns. This trip was planned two years ago but I did not make it, then again last year but a vehicle breakdown prevented me from making it. This year I only just made it and with only hours to spare....
Ugh! Im tired… after another 5 miles of great trail today I am beyond beat. The Northern part of Zion is much quieter with only about 10% of the traffic of the main canyon down south. Even with less traffic, it was rare that I had the trail to myself....
I drove into Zion Ntnl park and fixed me up some coffee and breakfast-burritos while watching the sunrise against the mountain side. Planning to hike the Angel’s Landing trail in a few hours; 5 miles of hard trail with the top of it being a cliff’s-edge scurry to the payoff...
