Welcome to Desert Explorer. We are an online desert adventure resource featuring introductions to ultralight backpacking, hiking, floating the rivers and mountain biking the deserts and canyons of Utah, the Four Corners Region, and the Southwest.
Latest Blog Posts:
15 April, 2013- Trip Report- Spring Break 2013 in Southeast Utah
06 December, 2012- More Tracking Books, Michael Yon, Primitive Technology
18 November 2012- September Trip Report, Part 2- Chinle, Comb Ridge, Rock Art
13 October 2012- September Trip Report, Part 1- Fish Creek and Grand Gulch
13 September 2012- Trip Report- Green River Family Float- August 2012
22 July 2012- Visit to Nevada, Tracking Movies, Lizards
17 June 2012- Trip Report- The Dirty Devil in May- What a Drag
06 May 2012- Trip Report-Hanksville, North Wash, Aztec, Jack's Plastic Welding
11 March 2012- Keeping a Trip Book- Our Approach to Visual Journaling
07 March 2012- Rattlesnakes and Snakebite, Wolves in Utah
19 February 2012- Tracking, Highway Cameras, Spring Break, Zion Fugitive
12 February 2012- Tracking This Week- New Experiences
02 February 2012- Stalking and Tracking- More on Wilderness Mind
14 January 2012- Wilderness Mind and Powers of Observation- Helping Kids to See
04 November 2011- Human Waste Disposal in the Bush, Leave No Trace Education
02 November 2011- Thoughts About My Chacos, and Help from Leki
08 October 2011- Dams and Silt, Trash Bags, and Human Waste
5 September 2011- San Juan River Family Float
08 August 2011- Spiders, Beetles, Dalton Wells, Great Horned Owls, Escalante photos
23 July 2011- Escalante photos posted on Desert Explorer Picasa page
08 July 2011- Escalante Trek, May 2011- Geology, Rock Art, Tracking, and Poison Ivy
29 May 2011- Escalante Trek, May 2011- Gear Reviews
27 May 2011- Escalante Trek, May 2011- Moody Canyon to Coyote Gulch and Back
23 April 2011- A Few Days in Southern Arizona
21 April 2011- Utah and Arizona- March 2011
Looking for specific information, something you read a year ago?
Try searching Desert Explorer (opens in new window).
Recently added and Pages of Note:
"...wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital
to our lives as water and good bread."
- Ed Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Our Mission:
At Desert Explorer we offer summarized trip guides from locations in southern Utah and the Four Corners region. We provide information to help you plan your visit, offering the details to get you to the trailhead, including driving directions, mapsheet names and guidebooks recommendations when necessary. We also offer general information on the desert- on enjoying and even surviving your visit.
We discuss what gear you should carry, water and hydration, survival kits and survival situations, primitive skills, and hazards of the desert while backpacking and hiking. We also provide background information on the natural history- history, prehistory, geology and biology of the desert southwest.
As we travel and discover new locations of interest, new backpack trips, hikes, rides, floats and even places to stop and eat we will post this information by region and include the details you need to take advantage of it. Be sure to check back for new postings and trip guides regularly.
All feedback is greatly appreciated. If you use our guides, please let us know what you thought of them, how they worked for you, and if you had any issues with the information we provided. Click here to contact us through email. And please help support our site by supporting our advertisers- if you see a link of interest please follow it and take a look. On our Guidebooks page we have links to most of the titles we recommend. You can purchase them from Amazon.com through us, also helping support our site. Our Recommended Gear pages have some of the gear we use. Clicking on the links takes you to REI.com.
Finally, the disclaimer- all information contained in this website is for informational purposes only. We make no guarantees regarding what we present. We are not responsible for you and how you use our guides. We are not responsible for any injury, loss of property, expense incurred by you the reader, or loss of limb or life. The desert Southwest can be dangerous- people are seriously injured and die each year attempting hikes or rides or floats or drives that they should not. You are on your own once you leave our site. Good luck and enjoy! For further information on the dangers of the desert visit our Words of Caution page.
All content at Desert Explorer is copyrighted- do not reuse or reprint any site content without permission.
