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Month: January 2015

Little Hole to Westwater Canyon

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Late this afternoon, Diane and I drove west into Utah so that we could search for some petroglyphs that are located somewhere in Little Hole, which is a short side canyon along the Colorado River in Westwater Canyon. We took the Westwater exit off of I-70 and drove south towards the boat ramp, but turned off to follow the Kokopelli Trail after crossing under the railroad tracks. After a few miles of the Kokopelli, we reached the intersection that would take us to the rim of Little Hole. While I had seen these roads in Google Earth while quickly planning this hike, I never did check to see if they were still open to travel and just hoped for the best. Luckily, most of the roads I planned to take were still open. About a half-mile from the rim of the canyon there was a fence across the old road that marked the beginning of the Westwater Wilderness Study Area. We would be hiking from here.

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Mushroom Rock Trail

Saturday, January 17, 2015

After spending a lazy morning at home we decided head over to the Colorado National Monument in the late afternoon to get some hiking in. Last year when scouting for a connecting trail between Monument Canyon and the Precambrian Bench Trail, we came across a faint trail that went into Monument Canyon below Mushroom Rock that we wanted to explore further. We decided to follow that trail this afternoon to see if it would eventually connected to the main Monument Canyon trail. We started at the White Rocks trailhead and climbed the steep trail into Gold Star Canyon onto the Precambrian Bench and hiked around the point of Monument Mesa under Mushroom Rock. The trail got pretty hard to follow once we were in Monument Canyon, but we managed to keep on track with a few minor detours. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and had to turn around before reaching the end of the trail. We never did find a connection to the main Monument Canyon trail, and we had continued well past the point where the main trail went up a side canyon. We will have to return another time to find out where this trail goes and explore more of the upper reaches of Monument Canyon.

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Palisade Rim Trail

Saturday, January 10, 2015

This morning Diane and I went on a nice loop hike on the Palisade Rim Trail at the base of the Grand Mesa in the Grand Valley. It’s been about four years since I have been on this trail and I have wanted to get back and hike it again with Diane, especially since the last time I was here the trail has been improved and rerouted. It was mostly cloudy and overcast this morning with temperatures hovering around freezing, but there were some nice textures in the clouds and some light did manage to sneak through. All in all, it was a nice short hike close to home.

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Mesa Lakes Snowshoeing

Sunday, January 4, 2015

After our trip to northern Arizona earlier in the week, we were looking forward to spending a lazy weekend relaxing at home, but we still felt the need to get outside for some snowshoeing on Sunday. We decided to drive up to Mesa Lakes on the Grand Mesa for a short loop on packed trails. We started following the West Bench Trail past Sunset Lake, then followed Mesa Creek back past the Ranger Station and circled around Sunset Lake to Beaver Lake before returning to the trailhead on the other side of Jumbo Reservoir. It was a nice short loop that got us outside into the snow for a little while.

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