Day 1 Our backpacks are packed and ready to go, we leave at 8:30am to drive over 80 miles to The Needles District of Canyonlands NP to begin our hike for two days. We had to carry-in over 15 lbs of water because there is no water available in this area of the Park. We…
Arches National Park
Arches National Park, it has been 26 years since we visited this Park, and finally we are back exploring this amazing landscape. Only 4 miles north of Moab, containing the world’s largest concentration of natural stone arches, this 73,000 acre region has over 2000 of these “miracles of nature”. We started with a short hike…
Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway
Fisher TowersOur adventure today takes us on a driving tour of the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway along SR 128. Just north of Moab on HWY 191 we turn off onto SR 128 and follow the southern bank of the Colorado River through a narrow steep gorge. Looking through the roof of the jeep up…
Dead Horse Point SP and Canyonlands NP
We left Durango yesterday in the rain and arrived at the KOA in Moab where we will be staying for a week. Today we are going to explore Canyonlands National Park and on the way we stopped to see Dead Horse Point State Park, situated on a high plateau at an elevation of about 6,000…
Pagosa Springs, Colorado
Today is a day of rest, so we decided to go to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, “Home of the World’s deepest geothermal hot springs”, about 40 miles drive north from our campsite in Bayfield. The Great Pagosa Hot Springs were first discovered by the Ute Indians, who named them “Pag Osah”, meaning “boiling water” or “healing…
Durango & Silverton Railroad
It is Opening Day for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and we have premium class tickets on the Knight Sky Observation car, the newest flagship car in the fleet, built in Durango and put into service in May 2012. This railroad is an engineering marvel built by the Denver and Rio Grand Railway…
San Juan Skyway
The weather finally cleared and we decided to drive the San Juan Skyway Loop, 232 miles, one of the most scenic drives in America today. The sun was shining brightly and the mountain peaks were covered in freshly covered snow. From Durango, Colorado we drove north following the Animas River valley and then climbed up…
Mesa Verde, Colorado
Today we drove to Mesa Verde National Park, created in 1906 to preserve the archeological heritage of the American Pueblo people. The Park includes over 4,500 archeological sites; only 600 are cliff dwellings and we took a tour through one of them, Balcony House. This is one of the best preserved sites in the Park….
Lake Powell and Rainbow Bridge
We saved the best for today a cruise on Lake Powell to the Rainbow Bridge Natural Arch. Lake Powell, named after John Wesley Powell, is 186 miles long and backs up into more than 96 major side canyons, and is the second-largest man-made lake in the US. Today we are going to take the cruise…
Grand Staircase Escalante and Bryce Canyon
Grand Staircase-Escalante Today we decided to take a road trip, a 200 mile loop, beginning at the Cottonwood Canyon 4-wheel drive road off of Highway 89. We entered the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and drove 25 miles along the wide dirt road until we reached the South Cottonwood Narrow Canyon entrance. The hike was…