Cross another trail off the list! The Boulder Mail Trail has a lame sounding name, but it’s a cool hike through a sweet area of high desert slickrock. It starts out with a quick drive across a dirt airstrip to get to the trailhead, and then on the actual trail, you’re walking on sand,…
Category: Backpacking
Canyonlands – The Maze – South Fork to The Plug
I’d never been to The Maze area of Canyonlands, in fact everything between Hwy 24 and the Green River in that area was totally uncharted to me. The weather looked awesome, but it hadn’t been warm enough to melt & dry out the Flint Trail, or the road out to Hite for my 2WD…
Grand Canyon – Hermit Trail to Tonto Trail to Bright Angel Trail
The Tonto Trail has started interesting me lately, so I picked the obvious choice for an introductory hike and that was the section between the Hermit Trail and the Bright Angel Trail. The weather forecast was sketchy, but it was going to be warmer in the canyon than it was at home, and that’s…
The Stair Machine from Hell aka Tapeats Creek to Deer Creek Loop via the Bill Hall Trail
This one wasn’t even on my list, but it was on the North Rim, and since the season to do those trails was closing, I figured why not. So it was another midnight run down to Arizona, looking for deer through the Kaibab forest, and sneaking in to Grand Canyon NP by moonlight. Everything…
The Grand Canyon Curse Lives On
Ever since I first visited the Grand Canyon, I’ve had at least one bad thing happen every time. It all started with the Havasu Falls trip that lives on as the first entry in this blog. That included a speeding ticket in Big Water, driving lost through the Arizona desert half the night, barely…
West Rim Trail – Zions National Park
I was half expecting the West Rim Trail to be nice and mellow more the first 9 miles and then just wind down some cliffs and drop in elevation down to the Virgin River, but it’s not so. Sure it starts out all nice and mellow, gradually dropping in elevation with some mellow rises…
Buckskin Gulch – Paria Canyon
Here’s the really brief synopsis of the trip: Buckskin Gulch – The never ending canyon. The 12 miles seemed like 30. Turn a corner, oh look! More canyon! Paria Canyon – Cross the “river”, get sand washed off feet, climb up the opposite bank, get feet covered in sand, repeat 50 gazillion times. Buckskin…
Superstition Mountains, AZ
Flew down to Phoenix to do a 4 day backpacking trip through the eastern Superstition Wilderness area. Got to the trailhead about 20 minutes before dark, but that’s fine since I was only going in a couple miles to the first campsite. Camp was going to be at a location known as Pinon Camp….
Grand Canyon II
This trip I went down the South Kaibab Trail, spent 2 nights at Bright Angel CG, did a day trip up Phantom Canyon, and returned via the Bright Angel Trail. The weather forecast was sketchy at best. It was constantly changing, and never looked very appealing, but there’s nothing you can do about that….
Grand Canyon — North to South Rim
I was up at 8 despite my best efforts to get more sleep. I was awake. After trying my pack on, I realized it wasn’t going to work for this trip, so I moved everything to my larger pack, and after a couple more delays I was on the road at 10. The weather…