From one extreme to the next! Just a couple of days after climbing three 14,000 foot peaks behind our house in Colorado JT and I drove to southeastern Utah. In a place where there seems to be more National Parks than people, we decided to do a little backcountry camping and jeeping. One of the most beautiful and immense parks in the area is Canyonlands National Park. This is the park where the rock climber had to amputate his own arm about 3 years ago. It's a pretty extreme and remote place. We camped off the far end of Mineral Bottom Road just outside the park. The red dirt road took us down to the edge of the canyons, where we jeeped down into the canyon and road alongside the Green River. There is a famous biking trail known as the White Rim Trail that meanders its way about 100 miles in the bottom of the canyons. After doing a little mudding and exploring, we jeeped back up to the rim and camped in a very isolated spot just about 200 yards from a 2,000 foot drop off. (See jeep pic above) The sunset was beautiful and the peacefulness of the canyon was as calming as calm can get. (See far aboe pics) After cooking some mashed potatoes on a rock over our fire, we slept under the open starry sky of Utah. The next morning we got up early and explored Canyonlands National Park. We found an awesome hike that took us 10 miles round trip down into the canyon. It was quite a hike! The heat really picks up the further down you get into the canyons...we enjoyed getting a few final tan lines before winter sets in in the mountains. If you have never been out to Canyonlands, I highly recommend the journey. It is an untainted and endless land that luckily is only a few hours from us.