Arrival in Price, Utah

In Price, Utah

I arrived in Price, UTah this afternoon and am checked into the Motel now. Tomorrow, I will be heading out early to the Price Municipal Airport to meet up with Mark Frances for our flight to Tavaputs Ranch. I had the opportunity to talk to some of the local people here today and asked a few questions about the Tavaputs Ranch, and am happy to say, I got nothing but excited exchanges of stories from everyone that I chatted with.

I was told I am in for the experience of a lifetime. I heard stories of the beautiful ranch itself and some of its history, the mountain range, the wildlife, and the views wating for the beholding eye. I am very much anticipating this experience. Tomorrow's flight over the San Rafael area and Desolation Canyon will be followed up by a horse back ride and tour of the area with the Jensen's, owners of the Tavaputs Ranch.

I am not sure if I will have Internet access at the Ranch, but I doubt it as the ranch is very remote and at 9,000' elevation!

Then Monday we are off to the Range Creek Indian Ruins for a very rare look at one of the best preserved Freemont Indian ruins/archeology site yet discovered. For a preview of what I am in for and more information, visit here.

Get Outdoors!

What and Why a BLOG!

Ok, what is a BLOG?

I have already been asked about 20 times now, what the heck is a blog? Well, let's try and clear it up for you, and help you to see why we thought is was such a great addition to our web site.

I did a search at Dictionary.com and found five definitions of BLOG. To see all five descriptions, click here. One of the descriptions defines a BLOG as:

Main Entry: blog

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log

Example: Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Etymology: shortened form of Weblog

Usage: blog, blogged, blogging v, blogger n

Source: Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)
Copyright © 2003-2005 Lexico Publishing Group, LLC

Another description was, "a personal Web site that provides updated headlines and news articles of other sites that are of interest to the user, also may include journal entries, commentaries and recommendations compiled by the user;", which is a pretty accurate statement as to why we thought a BLOG would help us reach out to you.

Tim, Matt, Russ and I, all truly feel the success of our weekly radio show over the last 6 1/2 years, is due mostly to you. Our loyal listeners and guest to the web site. We always try our best to communicate current issues that you want to hear about, and many of the topics we focus in on are brought to our attention from recommendations from our friends who tune in or log in to the web site each week. We want to continue to grow our audience and improve the format of information we talk about and are relying on you to help.

With this easy to use and post from anywhere we travel BLOG, we hope you and join in every chance you get with comments or just to keep up on the latest news.

With that all said.... We also like to ramble about our favorite fishing hole, what type of GPS should we buy, which manufacture has the latest/greatest outdoor toys on the market, and heck.... Why not post it all for the World to read? Call us nuts but we love to share our stories and experiences with you! So hopefully, you won't be bored silly with reading this and continue to stop past, but at least now we hope to have cleared up the water on what a BLOG is and why we are so excited!!!

Post your comments here!

We want to hear from YOU!

Did you know our new blog feature allows you to post comments to our posts?
That's right, you can comment back to us on any of the topics or post we put here on the blog.

To post a comment, look towards the bottom of the post for a link that displays as (X) Comments, with the X being replaced by how many people have responded to the post so far. Click on that link and if you already registered at www.blogger.com, you will be able to log in and post comments. If you are not a member of Blogger yet, joining is simple, free and only takes a few minutes to sign up. Once you activate the free account, you can then post to ANY Blogger registered site on the Internet!

It is your chance to talk directly to us or to get your two cents in on a subject, straight through the horses mouth! We very much value what you have to say and hope that you will take advantage of the opportunity to be a part of the web site and our weekly radio show.

So what are you waiting for? Click the little link right below here that says Comments and let us hear from you.

This week on the Radio Show

Welcome to the Utah Outdoor Radio News!

Outdoor Focus On Air!

HEADED TO PERU! - Russ from Skycall Communications, has lined up some great stories for the show, and this one is one to tune in for! Russ has hooked up with some folks headed to Peru to do a little high altitude adventure and the climbers will be in studio this week to get us all ready to vicariously join them as they will be calling in each week witht the updates. Tune in!

Utah Local - Nancy Seimens! - Many of you remember Nancy from several previous shows. She is at it again and we will hear from her to share where she is and what she is up to this week. Tune in!

Chad Schearer from Central Montana Outfitters! - Chad has joined us before on the show and you may remember him as "The Man who talks to animals". Well, now he is talking fish too! Chad's outfitting service, Central Montana Outfitters, has launched a new area for their clients and now offer fly fishing. We will find out details on where what and how much and you don't want to miss this one. Tune in!

Utah Outdoors is Blogging! - As usual, Cris the Trail Master, has been busy on the web site again and has now added in a great new feature called a BLOG. For those who are not familiar with blogging, a blog is a simple way to publish idle ramblings, news stories, articles or other bytes of information to a web site. It also allows YOU to comment back to us on these notations of senseless jargon or news items. Our hope is that it will help us share with you the information we gather quickly, share details on up-coming radio show or web site topics, or other events/happenings we think you should know about. Stop past today and read on at http://www.utahoutdoors.com/blogger/

An update on the Hudson Bay Expedition! - In May 2005, Scott Miller and Todd Foster will embark upon a 2250-mile historical canoe expedition from Saint Cloud to Hudson Bay. Tune in!

AND MUCH MORE!!! TUNE IN!

New on the Web Site

NEW - Nine Mile Canyon article and photo gallery. CLICK HERE!

NEW - San Rafael Swell photo gallery. CLICK HERE!

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Be the Weekly Skycall Scout!

Headed out to the great outdoors? We what to hear from you. We will select individuals each week to take a Skycall Communication satellite telephone out with them and call into the show FREE! We will pick up the tab for the phone rental and the minutes you use to call into the show, so what are you waiting for? Stop past the Skycall Communications web site and send them an e-mail with the details of your outting and see if we pick you!

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Weekly Wildlife News!

The Utah DWR Weekly Wildlife News is updated on the web site now! Some great topics this issue from extending the goose season into late January to the latest place to wet a hook, stop past today! Read The News Here!

Thats all for this week, but tune in each week for the latest news! And if you know someone that would also like to receive this e-mail update, forward it over to them or have them stop past the web site and join in now!

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More on Tavaputs Ranch and Range Creek

Good Morning!

I just received an e-mail from Kathy Smith of the Carbon County Travel Bureau, with more detail on this weekends trip! This is a rare opportunity to visit Range Creek and I am honored to have been invited.

The group I will be touring with will arrive in Price, Utah on July 9th, 2005. We will arrive to many activities that are going on this weekend in Price. These include:

• Greek Festival Days


• Moto Cross and Motorcycle Freestyle Show


• Concert at the Carbon County Fairgrounds


• East Carbon and Sunnyside Days and Rodeo

On the morning of July 10th, we will be jumping a flight from the Carbon County Airport with Mark Frances. We will be flying over the San Rafael Swell, Desolation Canyon and getting a introduction to the outlaw history from the area.

At the Tavaputs Ranch, owners Butch and Jeannie Jensen along with their family Tate and Jennie will invite us to enjoy horse back riding, history driving tour, good food and company, hot tub, relaxation and views that are incredible.

On Monday we will be leave the ranch between 8-9am for a tour of Range Creek. Our Guides will the Jensen’s. Range Creek is potentially one of the most preserved Indian site in the World, and with the recent disclousure by the family that has owned this piece of property and keep this National Treasure safe, and the taking over of management of it by the State of Utah, I have wanted to visit here for almost a year now!. I will be bringing back many pictures to share with you!

Ok, there is the plan so far and I will post any updates here as developments arrise. Have a great day and get outdoors!

Parunuweap and Fat Man's Misery Canyon - Zion National Park

Hi there!

Today I received an e-mail from a fellow blogger Tanya. I had the opportunity to head down to Zion National Park a few weeks ago, and spend some time at the Best Western Thunderbird Lodge. A group of friends joined Tanya and Bo Beck for a day hike through the Parunuweap and Fat Man's Misery Canyon.

What a great hike it is! I would recommend it for anyone that has some climbing experience and definately, do not attempt this without experience or an experienced person in your group with the proper gear. There are some step dropp offs that require the use of rope and harness to get through. Conditions can change daily in the slot cayon and pay attention to the weather forecast.

Tanya and Bo have put together a great informational set of web pages for those interested in this hike and they can be found here.

Just one of the many great slot canyon hikes available in the Zion National Park area. Make sure and look over the great information available on Tanya's web site.

I will be joining Tanya again for another great hike soon and very much look forward to bringing back great memories and pictures to share with you. Thanks for reading!

Getting set for the next Adventure!

Getting ready to tour Carbon County

I just receive confirmation that I will be heading down to Price, Utah on Saturday morning after the radio show. I recently went down for a planned 4 day trip but we had to cancel two days of the tour due to weather conditions. We missed out on the Tavaputs Ranch and Range Creek portions of the trip.

This is a beautiful portion of our State, and for those who may have missed the great pictures I brought back from the recent trip through 9 Mile Canyon and the San Rafael Swell, be sure to stop past the check them out here!

For those not familiar with the Range Creek area, this is an area that has been protected for decades by the family that owned the property. Recently, they decided the only way to protect this treasure for a lifetime was to make it known to the State of Utah and work out a land protection plan. Range Creek is possibly the best preserved indian artifact and study area we have today. I am very excited to have been invited down to explore this area that is currently closed to the general public willl the plan is put into place to ensure it is protected properly.

The Tavaputs Ranch is also a great place to stay while in the Carbon County area for a tase of the old West. From hourse back rides to tours of the San Rafael Swell, the folks at Tavaputs Ranch are there to help. I will bring you full details and pictures coming soon.

This trip is scheduled for July 9 - 11, 2005!

Welcome to the Utah Outdoors Blog!

Hello Outdoor's Lovers,

Welcome to the blog! I hope you will enjoy reading the posts and posting comments of your own to share with other guests. I will be updating this blog with trip information and details on where we are at and doing on the Utah Outdoors Staff!

My name is Cris Draper, also known on the web and radio as the Trail Master. Here is a little background on my so you know who is behind these posts.

Growing up in Utah, and having a very outdoor oriented family, I have been enjoying outdoor recreation since before I could walk. My father was an avid fisherman, hunter and rock hound. My mother also shared these interests and passed them on to my sister and myself. Family time usually found us escaping to a remote favorite camping spot and leaving the fast paced World behind. Learning and sharing these experiences at a young age distilled a life long love of the outdoors in me that has recently grown into commitment for me to do all I can to ensure the same opportunities are available for my children that I had available when I was growing up here in our great State.

I enjoy sharing my interests and love of the outdoors with my children and work to teach them to appreciate the great gifts we have in our backyards. We regularly spend family time ATV'ing, Snowmobiling, 4 X 4'ing, Camping or just about any outdoor activity you can name at one time of the year or the other. Being a single parent, I truly feel that the lessons the kids learn outdoors are invaluable in their growth and understanding of the Earth in which we live.

I have always found a special inner peace from the various activities I enjoy and countless hours I have spent in Mother Nature's embrace. This time spent in the outdoors, is when I find out "who" I am and what part I play in the World in which we live. This life long quest in the outdoors, has given me a vast knowledge of recreational experience to draw from in my current task in the workplace. In 1996, I put my outdoors experience to work (and the love to share these experiences) and decided to create a web site dedicated to the sport of hunting. The Hunting Trail fast grew into a very popular stop for web surfers to gather the information they where looking for. I developed a "web ring" scripting program and began providing a valuable service to the hunting community that allowed us to link our similar topic oriented web sites together into a on-line community. This free service was migrated into the fishing and outdoor recreation platforms and the Rec-Outdoors Marketing Group of web sites was born. I expanded to cover more of the recreational outdoor activities I had experience in and enjoyed participating in.

In 1999, the workload fast became more than I could handle on my own with over 10 million hits per month and I began looking for a likely partner to take these programs to the next level. AmazingOutdoors.com proved to be the final selected partner and a merger was finalized. With the merger, many opportunities to continue my passion in life have come full circle and I have diversified into almost all outdoor recreational activities from rock climbing to nature photography. In April of 2000, UtahOutdoors.com began producing a radio show dealing with outdoor recreation. We began the production of the UtahOutdoors.com Radio Show in late April and have taken this show to new heights! Our Saturday morning show is one of the highest rated shows airing in the time slot for our coverage area. With great outdoor information, weekly contests and FishBytes, (our weekly fishing report) and many more features, we are constantly working on bring our listeners the very best content available!

I am an accomplished writer and have had many articles featured in:

• 
  Utah Outdoors Magazine
  



• 
  Southern Utah Outdoors
  



• 
  The Valley Journals, Sports and Recreation News
  


• 
  and have written hundreds of articles which appear on my numerous web sites.
  

I have also produced and been featured on many outdoor TV segments which aired on "Good Morning Utah", the local ABC affiliate station in Salt Lake City, Utah. The segments featured all forms of outdoor activity from rock climbing, fishing, rock hounding, ATV's, and more! I have produced and voiced many clients radio and television spots.

I have given seminars on Hunting Mule Deer at the International Sportsmen's Expo in Salt Lake City, Utah. I hosted and MC's the Sporting Dogs Arena at the 2003 ISE Show here in Salt Lake. 2004 found me host of the Hunting Theater at the ISE Show, and again in 2005. I was honored also in 2003, to be the Master of Ceremonies for the Salt Lake Chapter of the Mule Deer Foundations Banquet Dinner, and in 2004 at the local National Wild Turkey Federation Banquet. I have spoken at B.S.A. Meeting to share my experiences with the young Scouts and truly enjoy being involved with the public.

I am a self taught and accomplished Web Master with a full range of both HTML and Programming Skills and over 10 years of experience. My company has created well over 500 web sites for many satisfied customers. I enjoy the interaction with people from around the World the web affords me and have many world-wide friendships.