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Tag: black ridge canyons wilderness

Canyons of the Black Ridge: Perseverance Arch

Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness: West Fork of Jones Canyon
Saturday, April 18, 2020

Hiking to Perseverance Arch in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness area has been on my to-do list for a long time. I’ve always thought that I would do it as an overnight backpacking trip since it’s a pretty long hike, which is part of the reason why I kept putting it off. Now that I’ve been having to stay closer to home during the quarantine, I’ve been going through my list of local hikes that I never made time for in the past, and I decided that it was finally time for me to visit Perseverance Arch and cross it off my list! I figured that this long and remote hike would offer me plenty of solitude near home on a Saturday when it seems like more people than ever are getting outdoors in the area. I left home well before sunrise on Saturday morning and drove up to the trailhead in Glade Park so I could get an early start.

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Lower Knowles Canyon via McDonald Creek

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness
Saturday, April 11, 2020

Ever since Diane and I spent a nice weekend exploring the upper reaches of Knowles Canyon within the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness area a couple of years ago, I have wanted to get back to explore the lower parts of the canyon. Now that I am stuck staying closer to home for the time being, I thought this would be a great time to finally get there to check it out, especially since I figured it would be a good place to practice social distancing, too!

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Jones Canyon Overlook

Saturday, April 15, 2017

With all the traveling we’ve been doing lately, we decided to stay closer to home today and went on a moderate hike in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area. We hadn’t been back out this way since our overnight trip into Knowles Canyon last October so it was nice to get back. We had never been out around Jones Canyon before and thought that hiking the Jones Canyon Overlook Trail would be a nice introduction to the area since I hope to do more exploring out this way later in the year.

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Pollock Canyon

New Year’s Eve | Saturday, December 31, 2016

Diane and I headed out to the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area early this morning for our final hike of 2016. We started our hike from the Rattlesnake Canyon Trailhead near Fruita and hiked up to the top of the Pollock Bench before dropping down a steep trail into Upper Pollock Canyon so we could visit Liberty Bell Arch (Pollock Arch). After checking out the arch from a few different vantage points we decided to continue down Pollock Canyon instead of returning the way had come to create a ten mile loop. While I had hiked all of this route on different trips before, it was all new for Diane.

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Knowles Canyon

Saturday & Sunday, October 29-30, 2016

After taking last weekend off to stay home and relax a little, this weekend Diane and I headed deep into the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness on an overnight backpacking trip into Knowles Canyon. We were in search of a few rock art sites thought to be hidden in the canyon, but unfortunately we would come up empty handed locating any of those on this trip. Instead, we would find a beautiful canyon with plenty of solitude only 20 miles from home. It’s nice to know that this kind of solitude can easily be found such a short distance from our home. Here are a few photos from the weekend.

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