Once again, I'll be attending the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market this January in Salt Lake City on behalf of BackpackGearTest.org. I can't remember how many times I've attended; I think…
A wet Badwater, driving through Death Valley From our second home in Southern Death Valley it was back to familiar territory. We took the opportunity to explore a 4WD road…
Confessions up front: I didn’t get to see the Wave. We did not get a permit. What is the Wave, you may ask? Well, go check out this link and then come back here. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Access to the Wave is governed by a lottery process, with only twenty visitors allowed per day. Ten are assigned via a lottery several months in advance, and ten are distributed via lottery the day prior to the permitted date. The advance lottery process is described clearly and in great detail here. The in-person lottery is a bit more mysterious so I thought I’d describe my experience for those planning on trying for one.
When we left Page, AZ the next morning the skies looked clearer but we knew there were isolated thunderstorms in the forecast. Still, we soldiered on with our plans to…
Having survived the rainy night we awoke to grey but dry skies and packed up the truck in between photos of the stunning terrain that surrounded us. Valley of the Gods is BLM land and a great place to experience the beauty of Southern Utah without all the restrictions and regulations of National Park Land. Driving out, we wound our way through the red rock buttes before hitting pavement, having to cross a small stream that hadn’t been there the evening before when we drove in.
Sunrise in Valley of the Gods
As we headed south towards Monument Valley we made a couple of side trips. Only a few miles off the road is Goosenecks State Park, essentially a bluff-top parking area with a famous view of the goosenecks in the San Juan River. There was a whole tour bus that had camped there the previous night so suddenly the paste-like mud we had dealt with in Valley of the Gods didn’t seem so bad (Goosenecks was my backup spot).
Our weather luck was wearing out. We had hiked through a brief but annoying thunderstorm on our visit to Landscape Arch and the skies were not looking any better as…
Arches National Park Continued! (read Part 1 here) Fiery Furnace For our afternoon at Arches National Park we had decided to sign up for the Ranger-led tour of the Fiery…
We only had 24 hours to spend in Arches National Park and I wanted to make the best of it. The first half of the day was spend exploring the…
After Rocky Mountain National Park we spent a few days in Boulder and Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. We spent a morning climbing at Flagstaff Mountain outside of…