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Tag: fruita

The Book Cliffs: Coal Gulch to Ross Ridge

After Work Adventures | Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Today after work I hopped into my Jeep so I could spend a couple hours in the Book Cliffs on a little After Work Adventure before heading home for the rest of the evening. After leaving work I drove over to Fruita and then followed 16 Road north to the foot of the Book Cliffs where I headed up the road through Coal Gulch and onto Garfield Mesa and Ross Ridge. While I was up there I hiked over to the highpoints of each of them. It’s been over 15 years since the last time I was in this area and I was looking forward to returning for this short visit since I don’t really remember all too much about it. These are just a couple photos from my afternoon in this part of the Book Cliffs.

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Lizard Canyon in the Colorado National Monument

After Work Adventures | Tuesday, September 12, 2023

This afternoon I decided to head on over to the Colorado National Monument after work so I could go hiking into Lizard Canyon, which is the next short canyon located just north of Wedding Canyon and south of Fruita Canyon. Although I have hiked across the mouth of this canyon a couple of times before, usually during our traverses across the Face of the Monument, this is actually one of the few canyons left in the Monument that I have not hiked into before. I started the hike from the Lower Monument Canyon Trailhead and followed the Wedding Canyon Trail into the mouth of Wedding Canyon where I left the main trail and followed use trails up and over a small divide into Lizard Canyon.

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Rattlesnake Canyon: West Rim Arch (Finger Arch)

After Work Adventures | Tuesday, September 5, 2023

This morning as I was leaving home on my way to work I noticed that there was a coolness to the air that I haven’t felt for a couple of months down in the Grand Valley. It certainly felt like fall is finally on the way! Since the temperature stayed nice throughout the rest of the day I thought it would be a great afternoon to go for a local hike when I got out of work. I stopped home at lunch to grab my hiking gear and then left from work and headed up into the Canyons of the Black Ridge so I could hike to West Rim Arch, which is also known as Finger Arch and is located at the upper end of Rattlesnake Canyon. I’ve been meaning to get over to the base of this arch since 2020 when I was on a kick visiting other arches in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness during the pandemic lockdowns, but I never got around to it and have kept putting it off for the past few years, so I was looking forward to finally getting a closer look.

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Fruita Dugway to Historic Trails View & Dinosaur Hill

Colorado National Monument | Saturday, August 12, 2023

Since Diane and I are getting onto the Colorado River tomorrow morning for three days and then leaving to spend the rest of the week in the Wind Rivers of Wyoming right afterwards, I needed to stay close to home today so we could finish preparing and packing for both trips. I still wanted to get out for a short local hike on Saturday morning, so I was up before sunrise and drove over to the edge of the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area to spend a couple hours hiking partway up the Fruita Dugway to the Historic Trails Overlook in the Colorado National Monument. I arrived at the Kodels Canyon Trailhead just outside of Fruita about twenty minutes before sunrise and started hiking up the trail toward Kodels Canyon.

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The Colorado River: Blue Heron to Loma

Sunday, May 28, 2023 | Average CFS: 29,670

After spending Saturday on the Dolores River, Jackson and I were looking for something short and local to do on Sunday morning since we were planning to leave later in the afternoon and head over to the San Rafael Swell so we could float The Chute of Muddy Creek on Monday. We eventually settled on floating a shorter stretch of the Colorado River in the Grand Valley from the Blue Heron Boat Ramp in Grand Junction to Loma since this is the only section of the river between Palisade and the Utah state line that I had not been on before and I thought this would probably be a good time to finally check it out. We were both up early on Sunday morning, met up at the Loma boat ramp to drop off Jackson’s car, and then returned to the Blue Heron ramp and were on the river before 8:30am.

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