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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.

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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Devil’s Canyon

Sunday, April 10, 2016

A hike into Devil’s Canyon is always a good way to spend a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. Since it rained for much of the weekend and I was able to get some work done on my Jeep on Saturday, Diane and I decided to go hiking in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area late on Sunday morning since it looked like the rain was done for a while. We hiked to the old cabin in Devil’s Canyon on the D3 Trail and then completed the loop back to the trailhead. As we started the hike, the creek in Devil’s Canyon was flowing from all the recent rain and it was also pretty humid out.

Colorado National Monument Western Loop

Colorado National Monument Traverse III
Sunday, March 20, 2016

After our overnight hike along the Black Ridge Loop in the Colorado National Monument last year Diane had mentioned to me that she enjoyed the hike up the Fruita Dugway and wanted to hike it again, so this year I planned a different loop that included the Fruita Dugway, Black Ridge Trail, CCC Trail and then returned down Monument Canyon. It would make a nice 13.5 mile loop on the western side of the Monument. We dropped my Jeep off at the Lower Monument Canyon Trailhead shortly before sunrise and then drove over to the Fruita Dugway Trailhead and started climbing the trail as the sun was coming up for the day. The Fruita Dugway is probably one of my favorite and often overlooked trails in the Colorado National Monument.

Upper Pollock Canyon

Liberty Bell Arch
Sunday, May 10, 2015

After spending the last two weekends backpacking in Grand Gulch I needed to spend a more relaxing weekend at home so I could start preparing for an upcoming trip on the San Juan River later this week. It had rained on and off all day on Saturday, but it looked like things might start finally clearing up on Sunday morning and I wanted to get out for at least one local hike this weekend. A few weeks back when I had hiked into the East Fork of Pollock Canyon I had run into Steve Obser, another local hiker, who had mentioned a nice arch in the upper section of the canyon that is known as Liberty Bell Arch (I have recently seen this same arch called Pollock Arch and Picture Window Arch). I thought that this arch might make for a nice destination this morning, so I decided to hike into the upper Pollock Canyon for a little exploring. After looking at my maps, it looked like hiking up the trail through Flume Creek Canyon and then crossing over the saddle at the far end of the Pollock Bench would be the shortest route into the upper canyon, so that’s the way I went. It was a pretty straight-forward hike and got me where I wanted to go, though I’m not really sure if it saved me much distance or elevation gain. I ended up hiking about 9.3 miles round trip this morning.

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Tag: black ridge canyons

Pollock Canyon

Knowles Canyon

Devil’s Canyon

Colorado National Monument Western Loop

Upper Pollock Canyon