With the semester wrapped up, we decided to take a trip down to Utah to climb around a little and see some country I’ve never visited.

The parks are surrounded by BLM. On BLM, as opposed to the National Parks, you can roam and camp at large. With only a few exceptions, we can drive anywhere and let Rhett roam as he his nose pleases with no entrance fees and no camping fees.

We never once entered a park. There is no need. We never once paid extra fees to enter an area we were already taxed to maintain. We did not support NPS. We were not subject to arbitrary and heinous rules – beyond what is required for “daily life”…

 

 

 

An old mine shaft was marked on the map. We found it, but the BLM beat us to it. It turns out, the BLM began a project this year to cap abandoned mine shafts. (Don’t worry mom, we weren’t going to go inside.) All that remains is a big cement poop in the desert. Uranium is the primary ore mined in this area.

 

Rhett found a spring at the bottom of the canyon we camped at.

South of Moab, we stopped by the Canyonlands overlook.

Snow started moving in. It ended up being close to a foot by the end of the night. We started headed west.

This is passing over the Colorado River, the northern most part of Lake Powell. Glen Canyon national recreation area makes up the lands surrounding Powell. Very neat area. The pictures following is a slot canyon we decided to explore in this area.

Farther west, we decided to head north towards Montana and explore some hot springs.

First stop, Diamond Canyon east of Provo. The road was closed due to snow, so the original five mile hike turned into a twelve mile hike.

After this, we decided to head back. If Salt Lake had a foot or more of snow, we probably did as well back at the homestead.