I’m dividing this into two parts because I have a lot of footage.
I went out and hiked a little loop of what I hope can someday be a larger loop encompassing the entire San Rafael Swell, and it was fucking incredible. It was a modest 30 mile hike that I repeatedly wished could have been longer while I was out there, but given the lack of natural water sources there wasn’t much that could be done about it. I started near Temple Mountain Road, went through Farnsworth Canyon, walked behind the reef along dirt roads, transitioned to a bit of cross country and just followed the back side of the reef until I hit Crack Canyon, then came back out near Goblin Valley and walked along the road back to my car.
This is the first time I’ve initiated a hike on a route I put together and it was a huge learning experience at times due to either natural or man made obstacles, there were times I wasn’t on my route at all and had to do things I didn’t quite anticipate, and it was the safest place to learn given a very large natural landmark in the form of massive canyon walls leading the way for me. I have to admit, walking into areas where there’s no man-made way pointing you in the right direction can be intense, but it was so much fun.
Anyways pictures.
Driving up on the reef is just blows you away, they’re a really intense visual.
Day one was very forgiving and easy. Day 2 not so much.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WILL SHOCK YOU.
I hate splitting it up like this and sounding click-baity. Transparency time: I do videos mainly because I really enjoy the process. I like filming and I like editing (most of the time), and I like sharing these places with other people because I think going outdoors and all that jazz is the best thing in the world for a lot of folks. I am not now nor do I intend on making my videos a source of financial income, I find Youtube too unstable/constantly changing of a landscape to even consider it. That being said I don’t want to spend a bunch of time throwing together a 30 minute video for 3 minutes of it to be watched. I tend to keep it around 10 minutes because that’s what normal people have time for in the day, ergo splitting this into two parts made sense to me.
The Limping Rabbit 