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When a small storm moved into the Sierras mid-week, bringing wintry conditions to the mountains, we took the opportunity to head back to Death Valley National Park knowing that it would be unseasonably cool.

We’ve always insisted that some of the easiest peaks can present the biggest challenges. We had twice failed to reach the grassy summit of Electric Peak, 13,598 ft. in the Northern Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Once in the fall it was due to unexpected snow and the second time, in summer, was due to intense rain.

We made a trip up to a favorite remote spot for the weekend, to Pierre Lakes high above Snowmass Creek. Many people who have climbed Capitol Peak have peered down to the rocky basin with the alpine lakes and promised themselves they would camp there someday, but the reality is that few actually do.

The following morning, with lighter packs, we continued down Buckskin Gulch to the Paria River. It was about six miles downstream to the confluence. After a quick dunk in the river and a little playing around with quicksand, we were on our way back up the canyon. We stopped at the midway exit to grab […]

Buckskin Gulch has the proud distinction of being the longest slot canyon in the world. All slot canyons by definition have sections of tight narrows, but the depth and length of these narrows can vary. Some are actually quite short, often measured in yards. Others can go for longer, even as long as a mile, […]

Continuing with our exploration of the peaks and valleys of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, we headed up to another new area, Dry Lakes and Horn Peak, 13,450 ft.

We left town for the holiday weekend and made our way down to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for a little backpacking and peakbagging. The destination was a place known as Lake of the Clouds, and the goal was to climb two nearby 13ers, Cloud Peak and Spread Eagle Peak.

Since Internet readers have notoriously short attention spans I find it’s usually best to keep a post to a few hundred words and maybe ten photos. So when I came home with 1300 photos from our recent Weminuche Traverse through the San Juan Mountains, I thought the single brief post I put up on the […]

The Waterpocket Fold of Capitol Reef might be best described as a bend in the earth’s crust where subsequent erosion has exposed the underlying rock strata. Whereas the layers of desert rock are normally seen in a canyon wall stacked vertically, the layers of the Fold are tilted on their side and are eroded away […]

We decided to check out Capitol Reef National Park last weekend. Like many people, we had long known of this National Park in south central Utah but had never spent any actual time there. One of it’s major attractions is the Waterpocket Fold, a 100 mile long exposed monocline— a geologic uplift that has since […]