Grand Junction to Blanding
Black Friday | Friday, November 28, 2008
Heading to Comb Ridge for Thanksgiving weekend is a trip I had been planning for a while. Our plans changed a little during the weekend and we didn’t spend as much time on Comb Ridge as originally planned, but we made up for that in other ways. Unfortunately, Amanda had to work on Black Friday preventing us from heading down sooner, but the good news was that she worked much earlier than normal. This allowed us to leave earlier and take a few backroads on our way to Blanding instead of hopping on the interstate and taking US 191 the whole way.
We started out heading south on CO 141 through Gateway and then followed the Dolores River towards Uravan. Shortly before reaching Uravan, we got off the pavement and headed south through Saucer Basin and towards Paradox Valley. Along this route we passed underneath the Hanging Flume which was built between 1889 – 1891 to deliver water to a mining project.
The road along the San Miguel River with the Hanging Flume above
Soon we reached the confluence of the San Miguel and Dolores Rivers
After following along the Dolores for a few more miles we entered Paradox Valley
Made a quick stop in Bedrock
The post office
We then climbed out of Paradox Valley on CO 90 and continued on UT 46 to US 191. Made a left turn and headed to Blanding. We made a quick stop at Wilson Arch near sunset for a photo 🙂
