IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

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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Saturday, October 23, 2010

On Saturday morning Amanda and I headed to Green River to follow the San Rafael Desert Loop. With all the rain the area had received lately we were a little worried about the condition of the roads in the area, but we lucked out and most of them were in good shape. As we made our way south from Green River the roads were a bit muddy from the recent rains, but not too bad. We did come across an abandoned camper on a muddy hill that someone couldn’t get out. The further south we got from Green River, the drier the roads were. Our first destination was the old Chaffin Ranch to see the cold water geyser. We hung around until it started to spout water.

While we were waiting for the geyser, I took some photos of the colorful mineral deposits surrounding the opening.

Just starting to erupt

There we go

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Friday | October 8, 2010

On Friday morning Amanda and I loaded up the Jeep and headed to Beef Basin for a three-day weekend. I had been planning this weekend for a while since I wanted to spend some quality time exploring Beef Basin. We made it to Monticello to fuel up and then took UT 211 towards the Needles District of Canyonlands, where we turned off onto the Cottonwood Canyon Road. I had been worried about the condition of this road with all the rain we had recently, but we found it in good condition and it was dried out (I’ve been on this road when it was wet before, and it’s no fun). We climbed up towards Horse Mountain until we reached the Beef Basin Road turnoff and dropped back down into House Park where we setup a basecamp for the weekend.

Once camp was setup I headed straight for Middle Park to find the granaries there. They were easily found but the lighting was bad when we arrived, so I figured I’d head back later in the evening before it got dark out. We continued on into Ruin Park and stopped at some of the ruins along the way.

A tower in Ruin Park that I planned to visit later that night

Farm House Ruin

We took the Bull Valley Spur all the way back to the Gypsum Canyon Spur where I found the arch located near the end of the trail.

The arch near the end of the Gypsum Canyon spur…..bad picture because I was shooting right into the sun

We hopped on the Beef Basin Loop Road from there and headed back to complete the Homewater Spring Loop before heading back to Middle Park. This time the light was better, so I took some photos.

View across Beef Basin

Double-Stack Granaries in Middle Park

The Upper Garnary

My favorite granary in Middle Park to photograph

Photo from further back

We headed back to camp for some dinner and to take a short nap until it was dark out. Once it was dark we headed back over to ruin park to shoot some star trails.

Here’s one Amanda composed

..and here’s mine. Probably one of my favorite photos from the weekend.

It was a good way to start a nice long weekend of camping and exploring 🙂

Wednesday, October 6, 2010 | Day 5

Wednesday…another day and another morning of waiting in the tent until the rain stopped. Luckily, once it stopped, the sky actually started to clear up and the sun came out as we were packing up camp. From camp we headed down the Colorado River to the trailhead for Corona Arch. This hike was on my to-do list for this year and I was planning on hiking it in November, but since we were here unexpectedly I figured it would be a good time to check it out. Our goals for this day would be to find some arches, petroglyphs and pictographs near Moab that we usually bypass on our way to other destinations.

We manged to arrive at Corona Arch while there was still some nice early sunlight on it, so we took advantage.

Corona Arch (Little Rainbow Bridge)

We also stopped at Bowtie Arch and Pinto Arch on our way back down.

Bowtie Arch

Pinto Arch

Next we continued on down the road to Jug Handle Arch to find some petroglyphs underneath it.

Jug Handle Arch

We scrambled up near the arch and found the petroglyph panel for some photos.

The large panel

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