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Westwater Canyon of the Colorado River

Westwater Creek to Cisco Landing | Average CFS: 5,440
Thursday, July 11, 2024

A couple weeks ago Jackson grabbed a permit for Westwater so he could take a shot at paddling his inflatable kayak through the canyon, and he invited me along. Since I had never been through Westwater Canyon before, I wasn’t ready to take my ducky through just yet and instead I opted to ride along on my friend Steve’s raft so I could finally see this canyon and it’s rapids for the first time. Early on Thursday morning I headed over to the Westwater Boat Ramp and met up with Steve. I helped him get his boat off the trailer and into the water, and then hung around with Lisa and Jen while the rest of our group ran the shuttle down to Cisco Landing. After everyone returned from running the shuttle we were on the river and headed downstream by about 10:00am. The temperature was predicted to get up to around 105 degrees today, so it was going to be a hot one and I’m glad we were going to be spending it on the river. As an added bonus, Westwater Canyon is the last section of the Colorado River between Glenwood Canyon and Lake Powell that I had not floated yet, so I was very happy to finally be completing that goal today, too. I guess now it’s time to start working on the Grand Canyon and the Upper Colorado…

The Rico Mountains: Five Years on the Calico Trail

Friday – Sunday, July 5-7, 2024

After Diane and I spent Independence Day backpacking in the Flat Tops Wilderness, we returned home early Friday afternoon so she could spend the rest of the weekend with a friend visiting from out of town. While at home I took some time to repack my Jeep for a solo trip and then headed south to spend the rest of the weekend in and around the Rico Mountains. Over the past four years I have been hiking to the summits of the peaks found along the Calico Trail, which follows the crest of the western Rico Mountains, and I only had one final named peak left- Landslip Mountain, which I panned to hike on Saturday morning.

Unknown Mountains: Return to the Henry Mountains

Laccoliths in the Desert | Friday – Saturday, June 21-22, 2024

The Henry Mountains are a laccolithic mountain range that stand high above a sea of sandstone cut by deep canyons on the Colorado Plateau and were one of the last-surveyed and last-named mountain ranges in the contiguous United States. In 1869 John Wesley Powell made note of the range during his initial voyage down the Colorado River and called them the Unknown Mountains at the time. Then in 1871 he returned to the area on his second trip down the Colorado and renamed them to the Henry Mountains after Joseph Henry, a close friend who was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Last year I was planning to head back up into the Henry Mountains after Jared and I had spent a nice weekend there in 2022, but other trips came up and I never made it. This year I was determined to get back early in the summer to hike a couple new peaks and highpoints and chose to go this weekend. I left from work on Friday afternoon and made my way to Hanksville, and even though there were a lot of storms throughout the area this afternoon, some which caused flash flooding around Moab and the San Juan River, I managed to miss them all- aside from the wind. It seems that it’s frequently very windy out when I stop in Hanksville, and today was no exception!

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( ЯR ) The Rimrocker Trail: Montrose to Moab

Getting Lost in the West End: Across the Uncompahgre Plateau & La Sal Mountains
Friday – Sunday, June 7-9, 2024

After having an amazing time on the river in Cataract Canyon last weekend, I wanted to take it easy and stay a bit closer to home this weekend. With warmer temperatures in the valleys and still too much snow in the high country for me, I thought this might be a great opportunity to finally take a scenic weekend drive across the Uncompahgre Plateau and La Sal Mountains from Montrose to Moab on the Rimrocker Trail, while also taking the time to stop for a few short hikes and side trips along the way. The Rimrocker Trail was created in 2016 by linking up existing roads in this remote area of Western Colorado, many of which I have already driven over the past twenty years, especially while I was working on mapping out a 4X4 route of the Tabeguache Trail and Paradox Trail. But even though I have already driven many of these roads before, it’s been a long time and I really don’t remember very much about them, so I was looking forward to the refresher on this 160 mile route. So after spending Friday evening in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, I drove across the Uncompahgre River Valley and found a campsite near Temple Park and the beginning of the Rimrocker Trail so I could get an early start on Saturday morning.

Final Trails at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison

After Work Adventures | Friday, June 7, 2024

After finishing my last hike at the North Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park two weekends ago, that left me with only one short trail in the entire park that I had not hiked yet, along with maybe a couple of other short walks to overlooks that I could not remember if I had ever been out to before, though I most likely had a long time ago. Since I was going to be in the area to start driving the Rimrocker Trail from Montrose to Moab on Saturday morning, I figured that I might as well head over to the Black Canyon on Friday evening so I could spend a few hours there and finish hiking all the trails in the park. As usual, I left work on Friday and made my way down to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Although it is currently the busy season for the park, I was hoping it wouldn’t be quite as busy because of the ongoing US 50 bridge closure and road construction inside the park.