ADVENTR.co // Adventures and Photography from the Colorado Plateau, Rocky Mountains & Beyond

Mountains of Minerals: Denver Pass to Grouse Gulch

San Juan Triangle | Sunday & Monday, August 31 – September 1, 2025

After staying home to attend a concert on Saturday evening, I was up early on Sunday morning and headed down to the San Juan Mountains so I could spend the remainder of the holiday weekend hiking and camping in the San Juan Triangle, which is one of my favorite areas to explore in the mountains. After making it over Red Mountain Pass to Silverton, I followed the Animas River to Animas Forks and then continued up the North Fork to Denver Lake. I parked nearby and then started my first hike of the day up the old mining track to Denver Pass. Although I have already hiked most of the peaks in this area and driven all the open roads, I had neglected to hike up to this pass before and was looking forward to finally checking it out!

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A Smoky Drive Through Grand Teton National Park

Saturday, August 23, 2025

After leaving Yellowstone National Park through it’s South Entrance on Saturday morning it was time to start our drive back home, but since we would be driving through Grand Teton National Park for the first time we decided to spend a few hours in the park stopping at overlooks and viewpoints along the way and even going on a couple of short hikes. Unfortunately, there was still a lot of smoke in the air from wildfires and the hazy light during our late morning and early afternoon visit was pretty terrible, so these are just some snapshots I took during our brief visit to the park. Maybe it’s because we drove through on a Saturday, but I was a bit shocked at how busy this park was! I was expecting Yellowstone to be packed with people, and aside from the popular geyser basins it wasn’t as bad as I envisioned, but Grand Teton was what I was expecting Yellowstone to be like with vehicles lining both side of the roads and overfilled parking lots and trailheads.

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Plateau of Fire: Yellowstone National Park

Tuesday – Saturday, August 19-23, 2025

Up until about a week ago Diane and I were planning to spend the latter part of this week backpacking in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, however some things came up that prevented us from going on a longer backpacking trip at this time, so we decided to change course and throw together a last minute trip to Yellowstone National Park instead. Neither of us had ever been to Yellowstone before and I’ve certainly always avoided the park because of the massive crowds it attracts, but I guess it was finally time to give the world’s first National Park a shot. So late last week I reserved a site at the Bridge Bay Campground for three nights and then came up with a rough itinerary that focused on visiting some of the areas around the lower Grand Loop Road, entering the park via Cody and the East Entrance and then leaving through the South Entrance into Jackson Hole. I had never even thought about planning a trip to Yellowstone before last week or been this far north in Wyoming before, and I had to consult a lot of maps and guidebooks to help me figure out the layout of the park rather quickly so our itinerary would make some sense.

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Lower No Thoroughfare Canyon

Heart of the World | Monday, August 18, 2025

Although I was running short on time as we prepared to spend the latter part of this week up in Wyoming, this afternoon was probably going to be my only opportunity to squeeze in an August hike in the Colorado National Monument for my Heart of the World project that I’ve been working on completing this year. So after work I waited until about 5:00pm in the evening, hoping the temperature would start to cool off a little, and then headed off to the Devils Kitchen Trailhead just inside the East Entrance so I could hike into Lower No Thoroughfare Canyon to the First Waterfall. It was still almost 100 degrees out as I started the hike, but there was an occasional strong breeze that helped cool me off, plus the parts of the canyon that were already in the shade felt pretty nice.

Telluride Trails: Sneffels Highline Trail & Mystic Falls

Friday & Saturday, August 15-16, 2025

Since Diane and I are leaving on Tuesday afternoon to spend the rest of the week up in Wyoming, I needed to be home on Sunday to get prepared for the upcoming trip. Still, I wanted to get out hiking in the mountains this weekend and decided to head on down to Telluride after work on Friday so I could hike the Sneffels Highline Trail on Saturday morning. It’s been quite a while since I last hiked in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness and I was looking forward to returning. Although it seems that the monsoon has been pretty nonexistent around here this season, according to the forecast it looked like stormy weather was going to back this weekend and I might have to work around some wet weather- I was just hoping it wouldn’t completely cancel my plans. As I drove down to Telluride on Friday afternoon I started to encounter some rain as I drove through San Miguel Canyon, but it had stopped by the time I reached Telluride and found a place to park in town.

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ADVENTR.co Posts

Mountains of Minerals: Denver Pass to Grouse Gulch

A Smoky Drive Through Grand Teton National Park

Plateau of Fire: Yellowstone National Park

Lower No Thoroughfare Canyon

Telluride Trails: Sneffels Highline Trail & Mystic Falls