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Wind River Country and the Absaroka Range

Encircling the Wind River Range: Rock Art of the Wind River & Bighorn Basin
Tuesday – Sunday, August 15-20, 2023

After spending the past three days on the Ruby – Horsethief section of the Colorado River it was time for our biennial return to the Wind River Range in Wyoming to begin. Ever since our first trip in 2017 to see the Great American Eclipse, we’ve made it our goal to try and return every other year, which so far we have been able to keep up. Although we have typically gone on a longer backpacking trip during each visit, this year I was more interested in visiting some rock art sites near the Wind River and in the Bighorn Basin that I’ve wanted to see for a long time. So with limited time preventing a longer backpacking trip, we instead looked into going on some shorter day hikes and even branched out into visiting the nearby Absaroka Range for the first time.

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South San Juan Mountains from Elwood Pass

Friday – Monday, July 28 – 31, 2023

After spending the last two days around the Animas River Valley between Coal Bank Pass and Durango, I decided to spend the next couple of days further south and east in a distant part of the San Juan Mountains that I don’t get around to visiting very often. I’ve definitely been long overdue for another visit to the South San Juan Mountains between Wolf Creek Pass and the New Mexico state line and figured that this would be a good opportunity to get back since it wasn’t too much further away. After the GIS Colorado Summer Meetup concluded late in the morning on Friday I packed up my Jeep and made my way over to Pagosa Springs to continue on with the next leg of the trip.

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The Sky Islands of the Chihuahuan Desert

Chiricahua National Monument to the Pedregosa Mountains and Dragoon Mountains
Arizona Winter Loop | Monday – Wednesday, January 30 – February 1, 2023

After a brief stopover in Petrified Forest National Park we continued south through Arizona on our way to the Sky Islands of the Chihuahuan Desert in the southeast corner of the state. A Sky Island is a mountain range that is separated from other mountain ranges by distance and by surrounding lowlands of a dramatically different environment. The result is a habitat island- such as a forest surrounded by desert. After leaving Holbrook we would cross the canyon of the Salt River and then follow the Gila Valley until we reached Safford and eventually Willcox later in the evening. Since I knew we would be arriving late I had booked a hotel room in town to stay at before we continued on to Chiricahua National Monument first thing in the morning.

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Rabbit Ears Range: Parkview Mountain Fire Lookout

Fire Lookouts Extravaganza | Thursday, September 1, 2022

After visiting a couple Fire Lookouts in the morning, I made my way back to North Park in the afternoon via the Cache La Poudre River and Cameron Pass and then headed south over Willow Creek Pass. Just on the other side of the pass I drove up the switchbacks of an old mining road that joined up with the Continental Divide Trail on the southern flank of Parkview Mountain, which at 12,296 feet is the highest point in the Rabbit Ears Range. On top of Parkview Mountain is the final Fire Lookout that I planned to visit on this trip and it’s also the second highest lookout in the United States after the one on top of Fairview Peak in the Sawatch Range. I was originally planning to camp near the end of the road and then hike to the summit in the morning, but since there were still three hours until sunset and the weather was looking good, I decided to hike up this evening.

Fire Lookouts Extravaganza in the Rocky Mountains

Tuesday – Thursday, August 30 – September 1, 2022

Since I was going to be hiking in the Snowy Range while staying for two nights at the Spruce Mountain Fire Lookout Tower in the Medicine Bow Mountains of Wyoming, I thought it would be fun to spend some of my time visiting other Fire Lookouts and Towers that are still standing in the surrounding area. Below are a couple photos from each of the four other lookouts that I visited which include Jay’s Roost, Kennaday Peak Lookout, Blackhall Mountain Lookout and the Deadman Lookout Tower in Colorado. I haven’t really spent any time in these mountain ranges along the border of Colorado and Wyoming before (my closest foray up until this trip was to Hahns Peak), so checking out these lookouts was a great introduction to the area.

Tag: fire lookout

Wind River Country and the Absaroka Range

South San Juan Mountains from Elwood Pass

The Sky Islands of the Chihuahuan Desert

Rabbit Ears Range: Parkview Mountain Fire Lookout

Fire Lookouts Extravaganza in the Rocky Mountains