IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

Saturday, December 25, 2010 | Christmas Day

Christmas was here again, and that meant it was time for our annual Christmas trip to Arches National Park. As usual, we started out with a hike to Landscape Arch to make sure it was still standing…..it was.

Then we wandered over to Pine Tree Arch for a few photos.

The view through Pine Tree Arch

A quick stop by Tunnel Arch on the way back to the Jeep

On our way to the Windows Section of the park, we hiked up to Skyline Arch.

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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, 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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Sunday | October 10, 2010

Sunday morning we were up early, had some breakfast and packed up camp. We would be heading home today, but not the way we came. We would be heading out through Canyonlands National Park’s Needles District.

Warning sign before dropping down into Bobbys Hole

The trail down into Bobbys Hole wasn’t bad, just a little rough

Welcome to Canyonlands

The Needles

We stopped to take a hike on The Joint Trail to Chesler Park. Amanda really enjoyed this hike since she had not done it before.

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