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Jacob City: Exploring an Abandoned Canyon - The tunnel wound and forked through ochre rock; tall and narrow in some places, low enough to require hunching over in others. We passed dripping new cave formations like stalactites, flowstone, and cave pearls: graceful conceptions of nature that appear only after decades of quiet solitude...

Naturalist Basin - Over the years, a variety of men and women have dashed themselves against these undulating peaks and basins. In one such surge of attention, a gaggle of nineteenth-century naturalists flocked westward on the newly minted Union Pacific Railroad, each hoping to be the first to make the “next big discovery” out West...

Unearthing History in Range Creek Canyon - Duncan points out a couple of crumbling homesteader’s cabins. At one of the cabins, the fallen timbers sprawl through the rock walls. He stops and tells the story of a young, single rancher who struggled to make a living here. He wasn’t here long before he was found dead by his neighbor...

The Lakes Backcountry - Most experts agree there is no gold in the Uintas. However, two men created minor turmoil when they claimed to own a map showing the location of several lost mines. According to their story, the maps were found on a group of dead Mexicans in 1830. Supposedly the Mexicans had been harvesting gold from one of the lost Spanish mines...

Eardley Canyon - When we catch up, I lean over the sideways tree and see Paul, unknowingly sitting with his back to a full-size ram. Half the ram’s torso is eaten away by some monstrous predator. Its broken ribs jut into the air. It would have been a quick kill in the narrow canyon...

Johnson Canyon and the Hunt for Montezuma's Gold - A few miles east of Kanab, a deep canyon slices northward through the Vermillion Cliffs of Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument. Johnson Canyon has an eclectic past...

Deep in the Uinta Mountains - We traversed one pine-carpeted valley after another, cresting tall ridges in between. On the second day we left the trail. We sloshed across marshes, picked around deadfall, and gradually pressed deeper into the mountains. Each ridge offered spectacular views of the surrounding basins...

Horseshoe Canyon - Horseshoe Canyon is part of a detached unit of Canyonlands National Park. It was added in 1971 to protect the intriguing rock art found on the canyon walls. Over 2000 years ago Horseshoe Canyon and the surrounding areas were inhabited by the Desert Archaic people...