High-tailing it out of Water Canyon - after getting turned around by a flash flood in the narrows on our first attempt to reach the White Domes - we had about half the day remaining and found ourselves in a predicament. As usual, I'd fully overbooked our time in Utah, so if we had any hope of returning to Water Canyon the next day - when it wasn't raining - we needed to accomplish whatever I'd planned to do then, now. Or, not. We could decide to just skip something, like normal people. Now, if there's one thing that's been…
26 CommentsTag: ruins
With only 4 miles between us and a hot shower, we strolled right past the mouth of Kane Gulch on our way to check out Junction Ruin. Then, the plan was to tick off another mile - or so - of the trail out, in search of a nice slickrock camp site for the night. But oh, how plans change. High above the wash, there was no way we were going to get ourselves up to this gem of a ruin. As we approached the enormous alcove in which Junction Ruin sat, it began to rain. The storm we'd expected…
13 Comments
Even before we'd pulled our sleeping bags out of the tent, I was distracted. Just outside an alcove behind the grassy area we'd called home, I'd stumbled upon some colorful spring flowers that were also waking up to a new day. Indian Paintbrush. (left) | Evening Primrose (Oenothera). (center) | Utah Serviceberry (Amelanchier utahensis). (right) The difference between the three of us and the flowers was that the flowers hadn't been stuffed into an ultralight Marmot Superalloy 3P for the last 12 hours. Now, I shouldn't complain too much - the mosquito netting of the tent did its job fantastically…
14 Comments
Despite dozing off easily, our second night on the trail wasn't as great as the first. With all the dusty, dry conditions, I woke up in the middle of the night with a bloody nose, and our proximity to water resulted in a few mosquito bites - on the face - for @mini.turbodb. Still, we were all in reasonably good spirits when @mrs.turbodb's alarm went off, and soon, she and I were packing stuffing our backpacks - having informed the kiddo that she could stay warm in her bag - in preparation for the short walk to refill our water…
11 Comments
I wasn't sure how comfortable @mini.turbodb would be under the stars and on slickrock, but with a few strategically placed rocks - which we all placed around our pads - to alert her to a getting-too-close-to-the-edge situation, she slept great. Better than either @mrs.turbodb or me, in fact! We'd set an alarm for two minutes before sunrise, which was technically about 30 minutes later than we should have gotten going. The cool morning temperatures are much nicer to hike in, and we weren't yet familiar with how long it would take to filter our water. Regardless, we had a relatively…
11 Comments
"I want to do something epic for @mini.turbodb's spring break," @mrs.turbodb mentioned to me a few weeks ago. At the time, I think we were on our way home from a day of skiing, and I jokingly suggested that we could take @mini.turbodb on her first ever backpacking trip, through the Grand Gulch. After all, I'd recently created a goal around hiking the length of this amazing gash on the Earth's surface. Anyone who has followed along for a while will likely recall that I don't like carrying weight on my shoulders. In fact, I have a collection of variously-sized…
15 Comments
After hiking 24 miles through Shangri-la Canyon - a few more miles of Grand Gulch than a sane person should in a day - cool temperatures made for one of the best night's sleep we've had in a long time. And, even waking up an hour before sunrise to "do it all over again, only in Water Canyon," we were well-rested, having fallen asleep just after 8:00pm, and only a few minutes after climbing up our ladder. All ready to go, no shadows yet playing across the land. From the little I'd been able to find about Water Canyon, it…
11 Comments
I wouldn't say the wind was calm as we went to sleep overlooking John's Hole in the San Rafael Swell, but it was definitely tapering off. By midnight, only a gentle breeze blew past our camp before cascading down into the canyon. Until 3:00am. That's when we were sent scurrying for our earplugs. It's amazing how much difference a good set of these can make, and soon we were sleeping like babies, the flapping of the roof top tent muffled as our cliff-edge-cradle was rocked by the wind until just after sunrise. Wanting to catch the canyon before too many…
12 Comments
Having "wrapped up" (and by that I mean, essentially, skipped) Stage 4 of the AZBDR in a little under six hours, it was just after 3:30pm when we set out from Winona in search of open roads. The elevations here were nearly as high as those on the Mogollon Rim, so I was a little worried that we'd soon find ourselves blocked by snow, but @mrs.turbodb was reasonably confident that we'd be just fine. As usual, she was right. The snowy San Fransisco Mountains would provide a familiar - and beautiful - backdrop for much of this stage. For the…
5 Comments
The first stage of the UTBDR meanders - like the San Juan River - through some of Utah's most recognizable landscape. It's hard to say that it was way too early when my alarm went off at the base of Mexican Hat, but it's safe to say that we'd gotten way too little sleep given our arrival at this place only three hours earlier. Still, with daytime temperatures in the triple digits, we were no dummies - though one might argue otherwise given our voluntary arrival to such conditions - and planned to get as many miles in while it was still…
4 Comments
Where was I? Oh right, I'd just completed an 11-mile hike before lunch in order to avoid the weekend crowds that never developed - at least, as far as I could tell. Still, I was left - in one of the most beautiful places in our country - with half a day to explore; the only thing standing in my way was figuring out where to go! Ultimately, I only seriously considered two options. The first - having just hiked the South Fork of Mule Canyon - was to hike the North Fork. I had almost no info on it…
6 Comments
Just as I was nodding off after a peaceful day of hiking Road Canyon, I realized that it was Friday night - a fact that was interesting only in that it meant that the following day was Saturday. Now, bear with me because I'm going to spend entirely too much time making this point. You see, Saturday itself wasn't all that interesting, rather, it was the fact that it was a weekend. And even the fact that it was a weekend wasn't very interesting, except for the fact that I'd planned to hike the South Fork of Mule Canyon -…
5 Comments
I was pooped when I climbed into the tent on the edge of the West Fork of Johns Canyon. A full day of hiking (I'd covered more than 16 miles), after only a few hours of sleep (about five), meant that I knocked out a full three minutes of reading before my eyes closed and my thumb stopped "turning pages" of Tom Clancy's Red Winter. Sleep was bliss. I'm not sure I woke up at all before the soft charm of my alarm - a little diddy that everyone probably knows from YouTube survey ads that play before videos but…
10 Comments
Having thoroughly enjoyed my time at Cedar Point, I figured it'd take me about an hour to make my way north, up the Moki Dugway, and to my next destination along Johns Canyon; this time the West Fork. But, as had been the case earlier in the day, events conspired to distract me as I pulled up behind another stopped truck in the middle of UT-261. At first I wasn't sure what was going on. Then, I was fumbling to get my zoom lens fitted to the camera. Mama cow was putting up a good fight to protect her little…
9 Comments
Stage 6 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Grants to Cuba. It wasn't even 4:00pm when we headed out of Grants to kick off the sixth stage of our route. With only two stages remaining, it was looking like we'd complete the entire route in just under a week - hopefully giving us a day or two of leisurely making our way home, exploring along the way. The reasons we were watching our time was that the sunny days we'd enjoyed so far - even if they'd be hot - were about to change; a storm system was…
7 Comments
Stage 5 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Fence Lake to Grants. Within 5 minutes of arriving at Fence Lake, we were once again on our way. The highlight of our morning - and perhaps of the entire BDR - was just a couple hours ahead of us; lollygagging around here wasn't going to get us there any faster. We nearly passed by the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, my sights so set on what I'd been looking forward to for days. It was only @mrs.turbodb's quick turn in her seat to read the - inexplicably one sided -…
13 Comments
Stage 4 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Reserve to Fence Lake. I don't know if it was entirely due to our disappointment at lunch, but at least partially due to our disappointment in how our visit to Reserve turned out, we decided to forego purchasing fuel in town since we still had half a tank plus 11 gallons in the Military Scepter Jerry Cans. That was plenty to get us the 132 miles too Fence Lake - the end of the next stage - and really, it didn't matter since there was fuel some 75 miles away…
3 Comments
As we set off towards Utah, I mentioned to @mrs.turbodb that maybe we should have taken her car on this trip. After all, the entirety of our off-pavement driving was going to be all of about 30 miles. Most of our time would be spent on foot, hiking from ruin to pictograph, with the occasional petroglyph thrown in for good measure. It was going to be a blast! I'd gotten the crazy idea for this trip on my previous foray - Utah, Re-Ruined - when I'd naively assumed that I'd wrap up the ruins that Monte @Blackdawg had planned a few years…
6 Comments
Having missed all the sunrises to this point, I made a point of actually getting up when my alarm went off after a calm night up on Snow Flat. Turns out, that's a good way to actually see a sunrise - who knew? Layers. Looks like it's going to be a nice day! Comb Ridge silhouetted into the distance. Up early, I took care of breakfast and got the tent all packed away by the time rose up over the eastern horizon. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd get accomplished today, but I'd decided overnight to make one final run…
3 Comments
Headed north up Comb Wash, I didn't have far to go - a couple miles perhaps - before I reached the turn off to my next destination. Too, the road here was in great condition, making for quick travel times as I marveled at Comb Ridge through my windshield. Note: Visiting Comb Wash requires a pass. For more information, check out BLM Utah Cedar Mesa Permits and Passes Information. I'm always intrigued by the "solid arches" along ridges like this. I wonder what makes this formation so common? The north end of Comb Ridge. Soon, I was on a spur road…
7 Comments