Hey all, After many long years of work our paper on the paleontology and history of exploration for fossils in BENM has been published today in Geology of the Intermountain West . Figured that this would be of interest to folks from both a technical as well as informational standpoint. https://giw.u...

Wow, that is nuts. Glad he survived. Life is madness.

A little bit surprised that no one has started a post about this development (unless I missed it somewhere), but many of you have probably already seen it on the news or on the Facebooks. A number of the Utah hikes indexed on here will now have to be reclassified as being in Bears Ears National Monu...

@azbackpackr The park lists that as being in the Petrified Forest Wilderness. The northern wilderness with Pilot Rock is part of that of that wilderness and tends to have that reddish mudstone shown in the picture...but there is also wilderness at the southern end of the park too. The rocks tend to...

That is the only readily accessible rusted out Ford I am aware of in the park. It is near the north entrance to the park right along the main park road.

I am glad there will be closure but sad that this is the outcome. My thoughts go out to her friends and family.

@big_load Packed! The community center was full, the shade tent outside was full, and people were standing outside in the sun. The Secretary extended the meeting for a half hour, until 4:30, because there were so many people who had entered the lottery to speak. I'm glad she did, since I ended up b...

This Saturday (7/16) at the Bluff Community Center at 11am, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will be attending a public hearing on the proposed Bears Ears National Monument, covering Cedar Mesa, Comb Ridge, Red Canyon, Elk Ridge, Dark Canyon, and Indian Creek. There will be tribal representati...

Based on the size, the flattening of the antlers when viewed from the side, and the open sutures in the skull I'd suspect it is A) young and B) an elk. Possibly a yearling? I'm no mammologist though.

In the poor neighborhoods you'll see a higher level of diet ignorance: baskets full of sodas and sugary processed foods. As others have pointed out, it may not be ignorance so much as having access to resources. I know that the Hot Pockets I get for lunches are not very healthy for me, but that jum...

As long as you don't mind the hike in-out of the canyon, it should be doable. The arch itself is not far from the canyon, and you avoid the nasty sand slog that is the rest of the trail to/from Cobra Arch if you're just coming and going from below. We looked for the route a bit when we were there ye...

Sad news coming out of Tucson this morning. San Xavier del Bac has been vandalized on the outside with black spray painted graffiti. Looks like clean-up efforts are underway already.

http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/3166 ... c-graffiti

azbackpackr wrote:Happy birthday, Rob and Mountain Rat, etc.!

Thank you much! I spent it mostly outdoors for the first time in 5 years. Felt great. Pictures forthcoming.

Especially since there are no other cliff dwellings open year round, without needing tours. It takes away a large chunk of the visitor experience, in my opinion.

As far as I know. There are some free GIS software packages out there but honestly for pretty much my needs using the HAZ map editor is sufficient.

I haven't seen this posted before, but when I was down in February we were informed that Spruce Tree House is closed until further notice (and may be closed forever) due to a rock fall and geotechnical hazards in the alcove ceiling. Full NPS press release is attached: https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/...

I have been using Backcountry Navigator Pro for years now as my go-to GPS app. We have even been able to use those data in published papers ( https://peerj.com/articles/905/#materials|methods ). I never used a Topo! app though so I can't directly compare.

It is a fair ways to get here from there.

The lecture went well, had a fairly full house. Now for a weekend of paleo talks and walks with the UFOP annual meeting!

Hey all, just wanted to make everyone aware that I will be talking at 6pm at the Moab Information Center on 3/31/16. I will be discussing our work over the last several years at Comb Ridge, Utah; taking high school students out into the field, collecting data, and the neat things we have discovered ...

I love Natural Bridges. Arches will be jam-packed in April. Canyonlands will be pretty busy too, especially Island in the Sky. Lots of hiking options on the lands around Moab too. In Moab Milt's is a good call, as is Eddie McStiff's. Eclectic Cafe or Jailhouse for breakfast. If you are going to be t...