After Work Adventures | Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Today after work I hopped into my Jeep so I could spend a couple hours in the Book Cliffs on a little After Work Adventure before heading home for the rest of the evening. After leaving work I drove over to Fruita and then followed 16 Road north to the foot of the Book Cliffs where I headed up the road through Coal Gulch and onto Garfield Mesa and Ross Ridge. While I was up there I hiked over to the highpoints of each of them. It’s been over 15 years since the last time I was in this area and I was looking forward to returning for this short visit since I don’t really remember all too much about it. These are just a couple photos from my afternoon in this part of the Book Cliffs.
Entering the Book Cliffs
Following the road into Coal Gulch.
Upper Coal Gulch
Once I was out of the gulch and on top of Garfield Mesa, the views of the surrounding white peaks really opened up.
My first stop was a short walk through the brush over to the highpoint of Garfield Mesa (7,300).
After hiking to the highest point on Garfield Mesa, my little ‘point and shoot‘ camera started acting up again and then completely died on me. It first started giving me some troubles two weeks ago in the Stinking Desert, but this time it finally gave up the ghost for good. I’ve really liked the photos I’ve gotten out of the Canon G5 X Mark II and I’d buy another one right now if I could, but that model is currently not available new from anywhere (and I’m hesitant to buy a used one), so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. For now, I guess I’ll just go back to carrying my mirrorless camera around or maybe my old G7 X Mark II. Anyway, the remainder of the photos in this Trip Report were taken with my iPhone, but I am not really happy with their quality…
Next, I went for a short walk to the highest point on Ross Ridge (7,405).
There was one large dark cloud right above this area which would drop a couple of sprinkles of rain as I started driving back down into Coal Gulch.
Headed back home after a couple hours in the Book Cliffs.
