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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 Colorado River: Palisade Rim to Riverbend Park

After Work Adventures | Tuesday, July 9, 2024 | Average CFS: 3,860

This afternoon Jackson and I headed out after work to go for a short float with our packrafts on the Colorado River from the Palisade Rim Trailhead to the Riverbend Park in Palisade. As we get very close to floating all of the Colorado River from Glenwood Canyon to Lake Powell, this was one of the few remaining sections of the river left for both of us. The water level of the river has dropped quickly and significantly over the past week, so it was moving a little slower than our past couple of trips further upstream and we had to watch out for rocks just under the surface, but the entire float still took us less than an hour and we were home in time for dinner.

Third Flats: Twist-N-Shout & Second Thoughts

After Work Adventures | Monday, July 1, 2024

I was originally planning to head up Lands End Road onto the Grand Mesa after work today so I could hike a section of the Palisade Plunge Trail, but as I was driving southeast on US 50 I saw some lightning in the direction I was headed and thought it would be best to turn around and come back another time when the weather was better. Instead, I returned to town and headed over to the Third Flats area of the Bangs Canyon Recreation Area where I hiked a short loop combining the Twist-N-Shout and Second Thoughts trails together. The temperature was in the low 90’s today, but it was cloudy enough with a nice breeze which helped keep the temperature comfortable enough for me. There were even a couple sprinkles of rain at times. Here are a couple photos from the short hike.

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The Colorado River: Parachute to Beavertail Mountain

Saturday & Sunday, June 29 & 30, 2024

This weekend Jackson and I set out to continue what we had started two weeks ago by floating two more sections of the Colorado River close to home as day trips. Last time we had started near New Castle and left off at Parachute, so this weekend we planned to float two more sections from Parachute down to Beavertail Mountain in De Beque Canyon, which is a section of just over 28 miles. Although there was a lot of storm activity in the area this weekend, we made sure to to get started early and off the river before noon so we had no issues with weather or wind and the mornings were actually perfect for floating the Colorado River!

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!