I've only recently finished posting my photos from our annual Thanksgiving trip to Death Valley. It's kind of fun going all the way back to November to relive this trip,…
Continue ReadingThanksgiving 2011 Part 1: Papoose Flat, Andrews Peak, Hidden Dunes and Eureka Valley
California is experiencing a seriously dry winter right now. I believe we had 3% of our normal December precip in San Jose. January has been completely dry. The mountain passes…
Continue ReadingWhite Mountain (14,246 ft) Attempt. Or, Winter is Cold
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…
Continue ReadingArches National Park Part 2: Fiery Furnace, Delicate Arch, Landscape Arch
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…
Now that I'm back from my Thanksgiving Trip it's time to get back to blogging about the previous trip! I need to catch up... We had set aside a couple…
Continue ReadingRocky Mountain National Park: Green Meadow, Cub Lake, Flattop Mountain