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Category: Hiking

Ouray Perimeter Trail

Saturday, June 18, 2016

After spending last Sunday hiking just outside of Ouray, Diane and I decided to head back again today for another hike near town. I’ve wanted to hike the Ouray Perimeter Trail for a while and though that this would be a good weekend to do it. While I’ve hiked bits and pieces of the loop before, since it connects up with other shorter trails in the area, I wanted to complete the entire loop in one shot. When doing a little research on the hike, I found out that they may have recently extended the trail to include part of the Twin Peaks trail that I had hiked last year. I couldn’t find any information about this new section online, so I was looking forward to checking it out.

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Ouray Trails: Sutton Mine Trail

Sunday, June 12, 2016

June is that time of year when the desert starts getting too hot for me and I start looking towards the mountains. After hiking Professor Creek on Saturday, I thought it would be nice to drive down to Ouray on Sunday for my first mountain hike of the season. Diane had school work to get done on Sunday so I would be on my own this time. I decided to start with an easier hike and chose the Sutton Mine Trail which is just outside of town and only about 4.5 miles round trip with about 1,500 feet of elevation gain. While this trail is called the Sutton Mine Trail, the main trail does not actually climb up to the Sutton Mine and instead ends at the Neosho Mine. If you’ve ever driven over Red Mountain Pass between Ouray and Silverton, you might have noticed a building with an ‘Antiques’ sign on it near the Bear Creek bridge. That is the final destination of this trail and is part of the Neosho Mine.

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Mary Jane Canyon

Professor Creek Falls
Saturday, June 11, 2016

It’s been a few years since we hiked up Professor Creek in Mary Jane Canyon and Diane has wanted to do it again since it’s one of her favorite hikes. It looked like this hike would be a great option for this weekend since we didn’t want to travel too far from home and it would be a good place to cool off with the hot weather we’ve had lately. I had checked the weather on Friday evening and the forecast called for sunny skies and low 90 degree temperatures which sounded pretty good for this hike. However, when we woke up on Saturday morning to leave, the sky was actually pretty overcast and the new forecast said it would stay like that for most of the day and that it would still be warm with a possible rain shower.

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Maze Memorial Weekend III

The Doll House | Memorial Day Weekend
Thursday – Monday, May 26-30, 2016

While crowds of people were lined up to get into Arches National Park and Island in the Sky this holiday weekend, Diane and I were back in The Maze District of Canyonlands National Park where we would only see a couple other people the entire time. This is why Diane and I have kept coming back back here for the past three years over Memorial Day weekend. Make sure to check out our previous trip reports from 2014 and 2015. This year we invited our friends Marty and Dave along to spend a few days down in The Doll House and the Land of Standing Rocks. It has been a few years since I last visited this area and I was looking forward to getting back and actually spending a few nights in The Doll House.

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Red Man of Timpie Valley

Sunday, May 22, 2016

While Diane and I were in Salt Lake City this weekend, we met up with Dave and Jared on Sunday morning so we could drive out and visit the Red Man of Timpie Valley pictograph. I had never driven west on I-80 before so it was interesting to see the southern end of the Great Salt Lake as we made our way to the trailhead. When we reached the trailhead and got our of our vehicles we were immediately swarmed by mosquitoes. They were everywhere! We tried to keep moving quickly in order to keep them off of us as we climbed up to the cave that contained the rock art, but it was pretty steep and we had to stop a couple of times to catch our breath. Luckily, once inside the cave the mosquitoes left us alone and we were able to enjoy the view until we left again.

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