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:
03 July 2009- Preparing for Kokopelli's, Jones Canyon; Everett Ruess, Tamarisk Beetle
28 June 2009- Southeast Utah- Archaeology, Rock Art, Museums and Looters
20 June 2009- Illegal Growing Operations in SE Utah- Drugs and Guns
17 June 2009- A Cool and Windy Trip to Southeast Utah
28 May 2009- Packing for Utah and Website Updates
21 May 2009- Tracking and Observing Coyote and His Friends
12 May 2009- Tracking- Getting Started, Recommended Guidebooks
06 May 2009- Wilderness Kids- Teaching Philosophy and Unschooling
01 May 2009- Canyoneering and Tracking
27 april2009- Updating Website and Checking Links
24 April 2009- Wilderness Kids- Survival Skills for the Four Year Old
18 April 2009- Wilderness Kids- The Four Year Old Flintknapper
05 April 2009- Homemade Backpack Journals
31 March 2009- Wilderness Kids- The Four Year Old Archaeologist
08 March 2009- Anderson Ranch Workshop- Photographing Canyon Country
12 February 2009-
Map Reconnaissance- Choosing and Knowing Your Route
07 February 2009- Planning and Preparation, Homemade Gear and Guidebooks
11 January 2009- Planning- Maps and Food, Noise and Sight Pollution
14 December 2008- Looking Forward to Summer
Looking for specific information, something you read a year ago?
Try searching Desert Explorer (opens in new window).
Recently added and of importance:
"...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- we must state that 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 even 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.
