Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 1:49 am
Bubba Suess wrote:talusfinder wrote:Thanks for the info. Hmmm... Still not sure what to do. Definitely don't want to deal with snow or snowmelt runoff. I've had enough sketchy river crossings for one lifetime. Hate em...
If I may offer a suggestion, this may be an interesting trip, that would include many of the elements you were looking for. It would include many different areas that you may not normally see:
You could go to the Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, which has some pretty good mountain biking trails. If you wanted to send the night in the wilderness, you could pack into North Cita Canyon. This canyon is a far cry from the activity in the rest of the park and quite pretty too.
www.summitpost.org/area/range/276514/Ca ... lands.html
www.summitpost.org/canyon/155140/palo-duro-canyon.html
If you were to take 287, it would be a pretty straight shot all the way to the Palo Duro Canyon, and along the way you could stop at Picture Canyon, which has some great hiking and really cool astro-petroglyphs!
www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/recreation/campi ... cnic.shtml
You would also be close to the Oklahoma highpoint and could nail that too:
www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/151933/black-mesa.html
All of this is fairly dog friendly and you would have most of what you were looking for, except for climbing, which, if you really wanted to, could be had in extremely fine form in the Wichita Mountains:
www.summitpost.org/area/range/171222/wi ... tains.html
www.summitpost.org/area/range/274583/Ch ... rness.html
Other than the Wichitas, you would still be in easy striking distance to the Canadian River Canyon. You could camp in the canyon or on the rim, let your dog run wild, and hike or mountain bike. Great routes are in the canyon or on the east rim!
www.summitpost.org/canyon/276153/Canadi ... nyon-.html
I know that this is not Utah, or even New Mexico, but it is all surprisingly cool, very beautiful and often quite spectacular. Sometimes the road less traveled yields great rewards!
This sounds great. Thanks to everyone for you suggestions, tremendously helpful! Usually a CO forum would have a bunch of wise a$$ comments...