Saturday, October 28, 2017
Watching the Earth’s Shadow during an evening hike in the Colorado National Monument.
While we didn’t plan for it, Saturday turned out to be another day at home for us. After getting some stuff done around the house during the day I decided at the last minute that I needed to get out for a hike in the evening. About an hour and a half before sunset I headed over to the Colorado National Monument and planned to hike up the Old Gordon Trail for a few miles. However, shortly after starting to climb up the trail I decided I didn’t want to stay on the trail and instead I followed the rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon above Devil’s Kitchen for a while to see what kind of views I could find up there.
Before starting my hike up the Old Gordon Trail I made a quick stop at the petroglyphs in No Thoroughfare Canyon.
From the rim of the canyon I had a pretty good view over the Devil’s Kitchen to the switchbacks of The Serpent’s Trail on the other side of the canyon.
A big pedestal rock I encountered along the way as the sun was going down for the evening.
I had hoped to catch some light on the Devil’s Kitchen below, but I arrived just a few minutes too late.
As I was exploring the rim of the canyon the light shining through this sliver of an arch caught my eye. If the light had not been just right, I probably would have missed it.
Looking over the edge with the No Thoroughfare Canyon Trail below.
A nice view down into No Thoroughfare Canyon, which I hiked recently in search of fall colors.
A lone raven sits on the overhanging rock in the distance catching the last warm light of the day. Once the light disappeared it started to get cold pretty quickly as I started my hike back down.
I spotted this marker from 1941.
A view of the sun setting across the Grand Valley with the Book Cliffs in the distance.
As I was hiking back down the Old Gordon Trail there was a nice magenta glow about ten minutes after sunset. This is my favorite kind of light.
This magenta light always makes the sandstone around seem to glow with subtle colors.
