Our southwestern locale offers still new adventure possibilities and the Bisti Badlands Wilderness 25 miles south of Farmington, New Mexico, and about 90 minutes from Durango is just another example.

While Stanna was snowshoeing (or attempting to snowshoe) in the early snows of the La Plata’s with her Wednesday hiking ladies, I was treading on the high desert sands of the Bisti Badlands.  Another geologic wonder uplifted 25 million of years ago and according to Wikipedia “uncovered” by the melting glaciers 6 thousand years ago.

In addition to the hundreds of sandstone Hoodoo’s eroding from the remnants of the geologic Colorado Plateau sands of it’s inland seas, there are amazingly well preserved petrified trees, stumps and logs.  One can’t help trying to visualize that ancient environment when you see a tree much like one lying in our contemporary forests with it’s knots and roots still exposed.

Mike Taylor and Ryler add perspective to the 40′ log resting on linear pillars of yet-to-erode sand. Will our trees become just another layer of geologic history?  Undoubtedly so.

Two days and one Xmas party later, I’m on the Christmas Tree Train heading up the Animas Valley to the winter terminus of the Durango Silverton Narrow Guage Train at the Cascade Wye where volunteers for the Forest Service will help passengers cut their own Christmas trees to be transported back to Durango in the train’s boxcar.

It’s a new feature of the winter train schedule, where they are combining the novelty of picking and cutting your own National Forest tree (permit $8) with a FireWise fire mitigation program to prevent fires starting along the railroad right-of-way.  Getting a volunteer spot on the inaugural train was competitive because of the uncertainty of a subsequent collaboration between the train and the National Forest.  I caught Mike hauling a young family’s trophy tree back to the boxcar.

They only allow 30 tree-cutting permits on each of the 6 days the program is running because the box car only holds 30 trees (up to 20′ each).  Quite a bargain at $8 a tree as long as you discount the train fare at $60 for adults and $36 for children.  The first Saturday they were oversold with 31 trees but on this Friday we only had 10 families to participate.

Amazing as it sounds, people are coming from as far away as California.  We loaded a 20’+ tree in the back of a pickup headed 7 hours over three passes north to Vail.

And just because people ask about snow in Durango, here’s the latest snow accumulation in Durango on December 12th, 12 hours after returning from the Tree Train excursion where the grass was showing at the train station.

Typically most people take the long drive thru Arches National Park just north of Moab, Utah. I never knew there was such interesting hiking north of Arches, or more accurately in the north of Arches National Park.

There are a variety places to hike in the area from Canyonlands south of Moab to the Fiery Furnace to the northeast: 15 places just on the BLM map of hiking trails, another 15 trails in Arches National Park, not to mention 19 in Canyonlands National Park.  All are within 3 hours of Durango.  Spring and Fall are the best times to experience the Utah desert, but Moab does a tremendous job promoting events, adventures and activities all year round.

With a 5-day dry weather window, we chose to visit two of the more remote hiking offerings called the Devil’s Canyon and Eye of the Whale, both Moab/Slickrock Entrada outcrops out of the otherwise flat southwestern Utah high desert.

Will Rietveld, our ultralight friend, knows this area “like the back of his hand” and wanted to show Mike Taylor and me a few of his favorite routes thru the fins, as well as explore new routes to turn into loop trails.  In this maze of slick rock it was best to go with someone who’s been there before.  Even with his 12-25 trips to the area(s) he was eager to find new ways to link the canyons between the fins.

Slickrock, as the locals call the bare sandstone no matter what layer of the Entrada sandstone (Moab, Slickrock or Dewey), was formed during the Jurassic period over 150 million years ago.  It gives one pause, and lots of discussion ensues when you come across a dinosaur track like the three-toed version we found on the approach to the fins.  The Colorado Plateau is famous for its artifacts, bones and prints of these prehistoric creatures.

With weather conditions of a recent snow, with clear skies and night temps down into the mid-teens, Will likes to car camp and day hike into these areas.  Having more gear than we generally take on a river trip was a different experience for me.  However it was easy to adjust to the “white-man’s fire” once the sun disappeared behind the rocks.  Just my winter sleeping bag, polar guard bivouac pants and down parka weighed in more than my typical ultralight base weight. While Will has Reveve Wear pots and pans with a Coleman stove, Mike and I opted not to burn our chili in the skinny aluminum pot and heated our dinner al fresco.  We did have a four-course meal adding canned corn into the half eaten chile cans.  Veggies and dip before the canned main course and fruit cocktail and zucchini bread for dessert rounded out the pot-less repast.  Quite a change from the high calorie dehydrated 6-ounce meals we carry backpacking.

In five days we only saw one lone young woman hiker, primarily because we were not on the recommended trails.  Even the trail we ran into was a Primitive Park Service trail that the throngs we saw in Zion, for example, never venture.

Note the snow in the shade.  Daytime temps were in the mid to high 30’s.

Kinda weird to hike most of the day in long shadows, but it made for interesting photography.  There were a number of arches and natural bridges in the area, some of which were not alway photogenic.  The most famous one, Eye of the Whale was photobombed by a fleece glove, but is still worth including.

My Gaia GPS tracking had a difficult time keeping an accurate track in the fins, canyons and crevices, but looking at the overview on Google Earth is always a fun way to see the terrain in the proper perspective.

There were a number of places where we passed thru very thin passages which brings out the adolescent excitement of exploring “unknown” passages in the earth.

Horseshoe Bend near Page – click to enlarge

Fall and Spring are the best times to explore our neighboring state’s hiking opportunities. And yes technically Horseshoe Bend, 5 miles from Glen Canyon Dam, is in Arizona, but it was the only photo taken in Arizona this week that didn’t have rainy weather.  Monument Valley was totally in dark wet clouds when we drove thru the Navajo Nation’s Monument Valley Park so that picturesque desert treasure was less that photogenic as you can see on the left of Totem spire.  We never even got out of the truck for that entire loop.

The rest of the week we spent hiking 7 trails in Utah in a semi-circle from Comb Wash to Boulder, Utah. The occasion was a Father/Daughter trip for Mike (my Durango hiking partner) and Stacie with her husband Cary and me along for support.  Cary had a professional interest in this part of the Southwest, since his tour company features guided trips in the area thru Off the Beaten Path tours, so Cary pretty much set the itinerary.

It was great because several of the hikes were not ones that Mike or I had experienced and seeing things like this remote Procession petroglyph panel was pretty special.

And visiting the heavily visited trails in Zion National Park, like the Narrows water hike or Angel’s Landing, were places we don’t normally take on.  But hiking 6 miles in water on a cloudy day at 62 degrees lessened the normal throngs down to a trickle of only a hundred or so.

We opted out of traversing the final leg of Angel’s Landing hike, which scales a sandstone fin with chain grab rails, due to heavy downpours and thunderstorms.  Pictured is the easy part of the hike to the middle

saddle. A “commons” photo from Wikipedia, of the rib is shown below, as it was too wet to bring out a camera and shoot up.

We were satisfied to make it as far as we did although we did see a father with a child-seat backpack coming down from the very top.  His wife must not have been along on this hike.

Good company, good food and good hikes made for a very fast week.

Patio Drive-In, Blanding Utah

Hell’s Backbone Grill, Boulder, Utah

Eager to go back if you’re interested.