Southwest 2020, New Mexico

After a restless night listening to the huskies bark and howl and Mancos State Park we were headed south to New Mexico. We scaled back our New Mexico plans dramatically due to closures, but in order to complete our circle of the southwest we did pass through the northwestern corner. One area on the list that we would be near was the Bisti/Di-Na-Zin wilderness. There are at least two main trailheads into the area and because of the short days we didn’t waste any time and went to the one closest to us, which I believe is generally described as the Di-Na-Zin side of the wilderness. While the Bisti side apparently features the hoodoos the area is famous for, the Di-Na-Zin side did not disappoint and it was a great place to wander for an afternoon.

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Southwest 2020, Colorado

After several days spent near the Bears Ears area of southern Utah we were moving further west and by mid morning we found ourselves in Colorado. The title of this post may be somewhat misleading, as we did cross back into Utah for one more stop, but those lines on the map are pretty arbitrary anyway. Our one more stop was Hovenweep but we entered through Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, at the Lowry Pueblo.

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Southwest 2020, Utah

After our night in Comb Wash it was time to start looking around this piece of southern Utah I haven’t really spent any time in. When we started thinking about our time in the Southwest our list for New Mexico was long and the list for Utah was pretty short. A combination of lots of closures throughout New Mexico and Utah having a lot of backcountry opportunities that kept us away from crowds resulted in us spending more time in Utah than anywhere else. We started the day backtracking to see the formation Mexican Hat was named for.

Mexican Hat
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