Trip Reports

Pacific Crest Trail

I’ve decided to create a “second” blog to chronicle my experiences on the Pacific Crest Trail this summer. That way, I won’t crowd up these pages with daily updates from the trail. So if you are interested in following the progress, go here. Pacific Crest Trail Journal

Lake Powell

The last two weeks, it seems I’ve spent every spare minute devoted to working the insane logistics of my thru-hike of the pct. With my brain starting to short circuit from all the planning, I decided it would be a good strategy to sneak off for a week for some canyons on Lake Foul. It [...]

The Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon 2010 “Just another trip of a lifetime” Grand Canyon 2010 “Just another trip of a lifetime” Once this winter I had already had to decline the trip I figured to be “once in a lifetime.” I had an invite from a friend of a friend to “enjoy some suffering” on a three week float down the [...]

Choprock and Neon

Three nights in beautiful Escalante Country. Choprock Had a whirlwind couple of days getting out to Escalante after a Grand Canyon river trip, but the stars aligned and I was able to hook up with Rick Green, Ram, Aaron, and Jenny West for a very cold and very early trip through Chop and Neon (Kaleidoscope and Edge [...]

Death Valley Canyons

Death Valley 2010 The Colorado Plateau is covered in snow, it’s freezing cold, and we’ve all got canyon fever. We need a destination. Warm? Check. Huge? Check. Lots of people? Check. Canyons? Check. So having very little in the way of preconcieved notions, I immediately volunteered to be in [...]

FFVIII - Black Hole

Freeze Fest VIII - The Black Hole from carpeybiggs on Vimeo.

Freeze Fest VIII

Man, this is one of those trips where I don’t even know where to start. I was so stoked for this year’s fest, and after missing last year because I was sick, I was ready to power through pretty much anything to attend. Even the 5 inches of snow that covered every square [...]

November Slots

After failing in our attempt to ghost Smiling Cricket a few weeks ago, a group of us got together again this week to shake down a few more new techniques, celebrate Tom’s birthday, and make a return trip to the Waterpocket Fold. We started with a quick run through a few laps of the Fiery Furnace [...]

Westwater

Alex has been inviting me on these trips for something like 2 years. Our schedules have never synched up. Finally, last week, we made it happen. 4 day trip down Ruby/Horsethief and Westwater. Short of the long, the trip was brilliant. Awesome people, and one helluva camping system. It probably doesn’t fit my style very often, [...]

Capitol Reef Slots

photos after the jump I won’t write much on this one, as my buddy Tom has already done so masterfully. Go here for more info - http://canyoneeringusa.com/rave/0910cricket/index.htm

Smiling Cricket

Smiling Cricket from carpeybiggs on Vimeo. The legend precedes this canyon. With only a handful of known descents, limited beta, complex logistics, and extremely remote access, it is certainly one of the plateau’s premiere wilderness slot canyons. In true wilderness ethic, our team set out to document a descent, applying various low-impact techniques developed over the [...]

Yellowstone

Crazy hot weather. No clouds. Handful of Wildfires. And very few animals. Oh well, a bad 4 days of photography in Yellowstone is still better than 4 good days almost anywhere else.

Wasatch 3-Wilderness

Wasatch Tri-Wilderness Traverse. 35 mile solo backpacking trip through Mt. Olympus, Twin Peaks, and Lone Peak wilderness areas in the Wasatch. Approximately 15,000 vertical over 3 nights. Start: Alexander Basin trailhead in Mill Creek on Wednesday afternoon. Finish: Lake Hardy Trailhead in Alpine on Saturday afternoon. Route: Up Gobbler’s Knob from Alexander Basin, through Mill A Basin, down [...]

Denali - Wonder Lake

3 days of camping at Wonder Lake in Denali National Park, hoping to photograph the elusive North Face of Denali.

King for a Day

Fishing for king salmon in Eastern Alaska's Klutina River, near Copper Center.

Wrangell St. Elias

A 5 day fly-in, fly-out, backpacking trip across the Sanford Plateau in Wrangell St. Elias National Park.

Denali April ‘09

I arrived in Fairbanks for the summer this past week, and was surprised to find the weather consistently in the 70’s, with no clouds to be seen for hundreds of miles. I quickly pulled some strings at work to see if I could get a few days off, and headed straight to Denali National [...]

Cedar Mesa - North Wash

Responsibility is finally getting the best of me, and it’s time to find a real job again. (although “real” is fairly subjective…) I’ll be making the drive back to Alaska in a few days, which means I had exactly one last trip to wrap up my spring canyoneering season. And what a sweet trip [...]

North Wash March ‘09

I’m a little late getting this trip posted, as usual, but here it is… I got back to Utah on March 21st, after spending close to 3 months in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Fun as Asia was, it still is nothing like home… So when Dave offered the invite for 4 [...]

Great Salt Lake

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve headed out to the Great Salt Lake to take some photos. I’ve always thought’ve the lake as something of a nasty swamp with few redeeming features. All it took was a few minutes browsing the Great Salt Lake group on Flickr [...]

Kalalau Trail

It’s mid-December, cold in Utah, and we still haven’t received much snow in the mountains. What to do? Uh, why not Hawaii? And with about that much forethought, I called Lauren, and the plan was on. We had about a week to figure out an itinerary, and since we [...]

Kauai

9 days of hiking and photography on the beautiful island of Kauai, including 4 nights on the Kalalau trail.

North Rim Grand Canyon

It’s been far too long since I strapped on a backpack and disappeared for a few days (13 months, to be exact.) I was able to break the streak with a nice 4 day affair on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I left Salt Lake late and missed the [...]

Yellowstone Wildlife

Spent the first week of October running around Yellowstone chasing the Elk while they were in the rut. Had a few surprise appearances from some Grizzlies in the Hayden Valley, a couple black bear in the Lamar Valley, and a very tolerant coyote near Madison. Saw alot of elk, but was a bit [...]

Primrose Dall Sheep

I’ve really been slacking on getting the posts up. This is from a couple of days in late September, in Denali National Park. My buddies Joe and Ashley joined me for a nice little jaunt up Primrose Ridge to find the big group of Dall rams. We found some spectacular views, and [...]

Roamin’ the Roost

A trip report from last week’s adventures in the Roost is now available on CUSA’s Latest Rave. Click here for more.

Kolob Creek

Kolob Creek Trip Report is now up on CanyoneeringUSA’s latest rave

Denali Moose Rut

I was fortunate to spend a week in Denali last month to photograph the moose rut. The weather was unbelievable, the park was almost completely empty, and I was actually able to spend enough time following the animals that I got to observe some really amazing behaviors. And, got in some nice hiking [...]

Denali Wolves

While photographing the moose rut in Denali last month, I stumbled on this pack of wolves. A couple of the younger guys got split up from the main pack, and one in particular was quite unnerved to be separated. Howling filled the air on all sides of me as they tried to get [...]

Aurora Borealis, Oct. 2, 2008

Northern Lights as seen from Northern British Columbia.

Aurora Borealis, Sep. 19, 2008

Aurora Borealis - Sep. 2, 2008

The northern lights, as seen from Copper Center, Alaska.

Denali Highway

Denali Highway, Fall of 2008

Wrangell St. Elias, By Air

Finally got a good night up in the bird with my friends Lauren, Joe and Ashley, and Ashley’s parents. Spent about 90 minutes flying over Wrangell St. Elias National Park. Might be the best part of Alaska… More after the jump.

Denali, Part I

I know these posts are months old by now, but I figure better late than never. This is from my first trip into the park this year, in early June. Road was only open to Fish Creek, but the wildlife was out in huge numbers. Saw 14 grizzlies, dall sheep, a wolf, [...]

Denali Part II

Made another run out to the park in early July, this time with my friends Joe and Ashley, and Jodi. Weather was spectacular, wildlife was all over the place, and the mountain was out for a few hours. I lugged my 600 through there, got some nice images of a few grizzlies. The grizzlies [...]

Chena River State Park

Due to some less than ideal situations at work the past four days, I’ve found myself stranded in Fairbanks with nothing to do. I spent a night down in Denali, and the weather was horrible. So, I retreated back to the ‘banks, and went searching for moose. Chena River State Park is [...]

Denali Grizzlies, Part III

Spent another night in Denali National Park. This summer is really starting to wear me down. It is the last day of July, and it was 48 degrees. Rained some more. I slept at Wonder Lake, and wondered what in the hell I was doing… Colorado Plateau, sometimes I miss [...]

Salt Lake to Fairbanks in 4.5 minutes

Timelapse of the 3600 mile journey from Salt Lake City to Fairbanks Alaska, filmed in April of 2008.

The Tragic End of My 5D

Provo Canyon Elk & Moose

I spent most of my free time over the long weekend following the elk in Provo canyon. Unfortunately, the winter has been really hard on the animals. That’s good and bad for viewing them. It means that most of the elk are much lower than typical winters, so they are easy to [...]

Barn Owls

I’ve never had a chance to see owls in flight, let alone photograph them. So when I heard a few other photographers talking about the great owl images they made at Farmington Bay, I jumped off the eagle bandwagon and headed down to the barn owl lot. These buggers are fast! All images [...]

Eagles at Farmington Bay II

Decided to make one more run up to Farmington Bay to see if the eagles wanted to play with me one more time before heading north. Met a couple of the old Farmington standbys who had been there on Saturday, and said the eagles were plentiful. With blue skies on Sunday morning, it [...]

Provo Deer

Another night, another quick run up into the hills. I was trying to find the bighorn again, but didn’t see a trace of them. After scanning the mountain for awhile, I spotted a few bucks, still with their antlers on. I packed up the 600 and the monster tripod, and started [...]

Rock Canyon Bighorn

Got off work tonight with about an hour of sunlight left, so I took a run up to Rock Canyon to check on the bighorn. I figured the recent storms would be pushing them lower and lower. I was surprised to find them in the usual location, but I could only spot 3 [...]

Farmington Bay Eagles

I’ve been waiting to head up to Farmington Bay now for a few weeks. A few guys on the bogley forum were checking regularly to see when the eagles would arrive. Apparently, they came in last week. Excellent news! I met up with a couple of them to see what all [...]

FreezeFest 6

Stories and images from FreezeFest 6, hosted at CanyoneeringUSA

Emperial Birthday Bash

Latest Rave now up on CanyoneeringUSA.com

BYU vs Utah

Moab

Finland Ram leads the boys into the playground. Ramooski on rappel. Brian watches from below. Brian finishing off the climb to top rung of the monkey bars. Ram and a couple of new recruits up on top. Elevator down. It’s dark in here. Around every corner, a new hall, just as good as the last. Brian on belay, Brandt getting flushed. Ramoo, gettin’ [...]