IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

You might have noticed that my 30-365 Photo from today was taken of Independence Monument at sunrise this morning. I met my friend Jackson and we started hiking in the dark to catch it as the sun first hit it. While we were there I took a few other photos that I thought I’d share in this post…

Pink clouds before sunrise

Waiting for the sun

Independence Monument

View over the Grand Valley

Jackson

Independence Monument after the sun was up for a bit

It was a cold but fun morning.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Amanda and I were both off on Veterans Day this year so we loaded up the Jeep and headed for Canyonland’s Island in the Sky District for the day. On our way there we stopped to check out some petroglyphs and pictographs.

Intestine Man pictograph panel

Before reaching Canyonlands, we took a side road to scout Marlboro Point for a future sunrise photo.

Crows Head Spire

When we reached Canyonlands we headed straight for Aztek Butte.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve sort of been in a rock art mood lately. I figured I would keep in the rock art mood by heading over to the San Rafael Swell to check out a few of the rock art sites I have missed in the past.

Morning along Cottonwood Road

Bottleneck Peak

Even though I’ve stopped at the Buckhorn Wash Pictographs plenty of times before, I took a few drive-by photos as I passed them.

A little further up the Buckhorn Draw Road I parked off to the side of the road and hiked up to Ruin Arch.

Ruin Arch…if you look closely you can see two petroglyphs inside the arch

Close-up of the petroglyphs

It’s a cool arch that is easy to miss when driving by on the road below unless you are looking for it

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Sunday, October 31, 2010 (Halloween)

On Sunday I was on my own again and didn’t want to get too far from home. I decided to head over into Utah to do some more exploring around the Yellow Cat and Highlands areas just north of Arches National Park. I started out by checking out a few trails around Lost Spring Canyon before making my way over to Winter Camp Ridge. In the spring I had started to look for a short slot canyon in the area, but didn’t have the time to complete the search. This time I knew exactly where I was going and took the short hike down into the Winter Camp slot canyon.

Different color on each wall of the slot

After finishing up the hike I had a quick lunch and then headed north towards the Book Cliffs.

View across Sagers Flat with the La Sal Mountains in the background

It seems that I end up visiting the Sego Canyon pictographs and petroglyphs about once a year, so I figured I would keep up the tradition…

Some Barrier style pictographs

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

On Saturday morning my friend Jackson and I headed to Green River and then south through the San Rafael Desert to the trailhead for Horseshoe Canyon (formerly Barrier Canyon). I have wanted to hike this canyon for a while to check out all of the pictographs, so I was excited to finally be there. The hike turned out to be just under 8 miles long after all of the side trips we took, and the weather was just about perfect. Here’s some photos of the pictographs we checked out along the way.

Our first stop was at the High Gallery

Then we stopped at the Horseshoe Gallery

Up next was the Alcove Gallery which was in a huge alcove. Unfortunately these pictographs were either worn off pretty good or vandalized.

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