2014 // ADVENTR.co

Gold Star Canyon Loop

Thursday, March 27, 2014

After work this evening, Diane and I met up for another short hike in the Colorado National Monument. We started from the White Rocks trailhead and then hiked the steep trail beside Gold Star Canyon up onto the Precambrian Bench. We followed the trail towards Monument Canyon and then turned around when we reached Mushroom Rock. Next we followed a wash down into Monument Canyon and hiked back to White Rocks by circling around the Little Island. It was a nice evening hike. I don’t usually carry my camera on these short after-work hikes but the clouds in the sky were pretty nice from the passing storms so I decided to bring it with me. I’m glad I did!

Ute Canyon Trail

Sunday, March 23, 2014

After a rainy Saturday, Diane and I headed up to the Colorado National Monument on Sunday to get in a little hiking close to home. It’s been a few years since I’ve hiked down Ute Canyon so we decided to make that our destination for the day. Since I wanted to hike the whole trail from top to bottom we left my Jeep at the lower trailhead and then drove up to the upper trailhead in Diane’s car. When we dropped off my Jeep at the Wildwood Trailhead we found the parking lot full and had to park along the road. There were a lot of people hiking up to Liberty Cap today and I’m glad we weren’t one of them. We didn’t see anyone else in Ute Canyon all afternoon, which was nice.

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Cedar Mesa & Beyond

Friday – Sunday, March 14-16, 2014

On Friday morning, Diane and I headed south towards Cedar Mesa in southern Utah to spend a long weekend hiking, camping and searching for some new rock art sites along the way. While the weather was nice during the days it was still a bit cold overnight and in the mornings, especially on Sunday morning when it dropped down to the low 20’s when we woke up around sunrise. Friday was a little breezy with nice clouds in the sky but Saturday was very windy. We got sand-blasted on Saturday pretty good while searching boulders for petroglyphs in the afternoon. When Sunday arrived the winds had finally calmed down and the skies had cleared. We had a great weekend and managed to find everything we were looking for.

Canyon Rim Trail

Monday, March 10, 2014

This evening Diane and I went on a short last-minute hike after work in the Colorado National Monument since the weather was so nice out. We ended up along the Canyon Rim Trail and enjoyed the views across Wedding Canyon as the sun sunk low in the sky behind a thin layer of clouds. Here’s a few photos I took along the way…

The Sandstone Bowl

Saturday, March 1, 2014

When Diane and I woke up Saturday morning we had no plans for the day. We wanted to do something outsite but the weather was calling for rain all day. In the end we decided to ignore the weather reports since it looked nice outside and took a last minute trip just over the stateline into Utah so I could check on a geocache that I had placed a few years back. It’s in a remote area that sees little traffic so very few people have actually found it. It had been a while since I had been out that way and I was looking forward to hiking around the area. After getting off the pavement onto the Yellow Cat Road we ran into some pretty muddy conditions that slowed down driving, but nothing too bad. After leaving the Yellow Cat Road we pretty much drove on sandy roads the rest of the day and didn’t have to deal with any more slippery mud. Although, a lot of the two-track roads we drove were filled with tumbleweeds, so we had to deal with those instead. It appears that we were the first vehicle on some of these roads this season. Even though there were storms all around us for most of the day we managed to miss most of the rain. It was a bit windy out all day, but the scattered clouds made for some excellent photography conditions with the changing light and shadows. My favorite kind of day!

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Year: 2014

Gold Star Canyon Loop

Ute Canyon Trail

Cedar Mesa & Beyond

Canyon Rim Trail

The Sandstone Bowl