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We managed a single Colorado trip this summer to hike Yale, at the beginning of August. The summer was otherwise filled with backyard porch construction and a skosh of rocketry. I’m disappointed that we did very little camping; hopefully the house improvements will be worth it in the long run.

This post is about a family yurt trip we did February 2024 to the Spruce Hole yurt at the NM/CO border, though I’m very late in posting this (eight months late). This was a very difficult trip. We’ve been to this yurt two (three?) times before, and it’s only a

Well, I definitely have a story to report. Got a helicopter ride for the first time ever. Also, first time I’ve been a member of a rescue-d party rather than the rescue-ing party. Pretty good story, actually. Short version We went canyoneering, Emma broke her foot, we effected a high-angle

We just returned from a fantastic family camping road trip to southeast Utah. This time we kept our plans fairly open and flexible. We had a list of possible spots and regions and activities, but avoided putting any specific dates or expectations on anything. In the end, our overall route

I left the family at home to meet up with friends in Utah for some adults-only canyoneering. We had a mix of beginners and experienced types. We drove up Friday, did one canyon each Saturday through Tuesday, then drove back on a Wednesday. For the first two days we had

Karen and I are in agreement on the perfect fall camping trip: the days must be cool enough to warrant a daytime campfire, the nights must be COLD for cozy sleeping, there must be sufficient time for ample laziness, and it must take place beneath a grove of yellow-leaved aspen.

We hiked Handies again last weekend, partially because Emerson has never been all the way up it on his own two feet, but mostly because I convinced some other awesome families to join us for their first 14er and Handies is the best option for that in my opinion. It

Karen went out of town for work, so I took the boys up to do a 14er. They were awesome. I don’t know how long it will last, but they’re currently very excited to get up in the dark in the middle of the night. Let’s ride that wave of

Bolam pass is between Purgatory and Rico(?). Drive north from Durango, hang a left at the Purgatory ski area, drive past all the ski area bits and continue up and West out the Hermosa creek to the end of that valley, hang a right angle turn North and drive close

Down to bottom and back. Shuttle from Bright Angel TH to Kaibab TH before dawn, down kaibab then up bright angel. 18 mi, 4,500 ft, 6:40

This campsite out in the american springs area was surprisingly nice. We also found an impressive shelter that someone had built.

Since we’ve been homeschooling, I (Karen) have read a lot of books about the topic. I remember reading once about how art shouldn’t be “taught” or forced upon kids until at least third grade. Instead, you should spend all that time and energy you would otherwise devote to painting and

(writing this 1/23/22 about a trip taken 12/27/16-1/5/17) Though this is obviously not in the southwest (or even the US), it’s nevertheless an awesome trip we slipped in between the parenting and I’m posting it here so I can look back on it and jog good memories. Many (most?) of

I’m adding this post in 2022 about a 2016 camping trip, just to get the pics and video archived. The Gauss’s joined us in their camper. I recall that we had to cut a tree off the approach road, about which we were all pretty psyched. Not least because there’s

Here I am in 2022, adding content for this trip from 2016. I recall being happy to hang out with adults, and also forgetting how to have an adult conversation. Karen stayed home with Bodie (5) and Jasper(3) and I joined new and old friends for a few days of

Another solo dad mission with just Bodie and Jasper, Karen stayed home with baby Emerson. Convinced another family to join me, and we spent lots of time under the tarp, and, as you can see from the pictures, the back of the car. They still had fun! The boys named

I’m writing this in 2023, trying to add these old trips into the blog, and my memory is hazy at best. Karen stayed home to experience some peace and quiet while I drove the boys to Moab and met up with a couple other families. It went extremely well, considering

When I was a boy I dreamed of exploring caves. We’re lucky to live in a place where I can take our boys to such things. This is at some random cliffside north of Los Alamos. We drove way down Rendija to the power station, took a left at Guaje

adding this post in 2022, as I work through my backlog of trips: Staveley and family joined us in Flagstaff in a rental house and we took the young boys on some adventures–those that were accessible to us, anyway. We hiked a lava tube, hiked down near sedona, and went