It was a great weekend for checking out some more waterfalls in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness, with a bit of rain a couple days before the trip and relatively good weather during. The targets this time were Compton Double Falls (39′), Wild Burro Falls (21′), and Beagle Point Falls (76′) – all on or near Whitaker Creek.
The Boen Gulf access point for the Upper Buffalo Wilderness is the primary way of accessing 4 nearby waterfalls – Magnolia, Woods Boys, Stahle, and Hadlock Cascade, though you can also get to Paradise Falls with a bit more walking. I’ve day-hiked this area 2 or 3 times but this was first time backpacking there – a 2-nighter accompanied by RC and CC. Rain the previous day had the creeks flowing well.
This was my second time doing the 27-mile Eagle Rock Loop and was accompanied by RC (who was also with me 6 years ago) and first-timer TC. I was surprised at how little of this great scenery I remembered, and think I need to make a point of doing this hike every 2 or 3 years.
My 5th annual trip to the Wind River Range! This time we started in the Elkhart Park area, near Pinedale, at the Pole Creek trail head. The target area is almost entirely within the Bridger Wilderness of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
The Platte River Wilderness covers about 23K acres of the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest in southern Wyoming’s Snowy Range and was the site of a recent 3-day trip. Our original plan was for an area about 20 miles north near Medicine Bow Peak but a week before the trip there was still too much snow at that elevation so an alternate plan was hastily assembled.
Platte River Wilderness
Chaco Culture National Historical Park encompasses an important collection of ancient Puebloan ruins in NW New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon and a visit here has long been on my to do list. A big difference here as opposed to places like Canyon de Chelly is that you can see the ruins up close and generally even walk through them. I took 350 photos here over a day and a half and only 100 over 3 days at the Grand Canyon so I guess that says something.
Canyon de Chelly (pronounced də-SHAY) National Monument in NE Arizona wasn’t on my radar when I started the trip but some folks in Kanab convinced me to consider it, and I’m glad I did. I was headed from the Grand Canyon to Farmington NM via US160, so it was not far out of the way.
I couldn’t go through the area without a trip to the Grand Canyon, could I? In fact, a week of backpacking from the north side of the canyon was the original reason for the whole trip but stuff happened so I found other things to see and do.
I spent about 3 days in the Kanab Utah area, which has lots of stuff to see and do, and is kinda the gateway to Escalante, Bryce, Zion, and more. Kanab’s own Visitor Center and the BLM’s Grand Staircase/Escalante Visitor Center (on the east edge of town) have useful information. In addition, most restaurants and motels have racks of brochures.
The Glen Canyon Dam is an impressive bit of engineering but I can’t help thinking that J. W. Powell would be ashamed to have his name associated with the lake behind it. A big surprise for me was that the whole enterprise is operated by something called the “Bureau of Reclamation“. I kinda think “reclamation” would be taking the dam out.
Michael R - The Compulsive Hiker
