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Wedding Canyon Loop 2019

New Year’s Day | Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Happy New Year! This year Diane and I woke up early on New Year’s Day and headed over to the Colorado National Monument so we could hike the Wedding Canyon Loop at sunrise like we do almost every year. We arrived shortly before sunrise and were the first vehicle at the Monument Canyon Trailhead. When we started hiking the temperature out was in the single digits and the early morning dawn light was just beginning to illuminate the landscape. There was fresh snow on the trail from a big snowstorm the previous day, but there wasn’t quite as much snow on the ground here as there was at our house. We watched the clouds change color as we made our way to the mouth of Wedding Canyon and then hiked up the canyon to Independence Monument, which is the halfway point of the loop. From there we followed the lower Monument Canyon Trail back down to the trailhead making a complete loop around The Island. As usual, it was a great way to start the new year, even though it was cold out!

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Christmas Eve Clouds

Christmas Eve | Monday, December 24, 2018

When I got out of work early on Christmas Eve it looked like the winter storm that had been around all day was finally starting to clear out, and I thought it might be a good opportunity to photograph a nice sunset. I stopped home quickly to grab my camera and then headed up to the Colorado National Monument to see if I could get a few photos. Unfortunately, there was a thick bank of low clouds hovering right over the Monument and I never got the light that I was hoping for. I waited around for a while hoping the clouds would clear before sunset, but they never did, so I ended up not taking many photos. I’ll share the few photos I did take below.

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Turkey Flats on Piñon Mesa

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

After work on Tuesday, Diane and I loaded up our bikes and headed up to Piñon Mesa above Glade Park so we could go for a ride on the Turkey Flats Trail and beat the heat in the valley. It was 105 degrees down in the Grand Valley when we left home, but when we reached the Fruita Picnic Area to unload our bikes it was a more comfortable 83 degrees out. This evening we were going to combine the Turkey Flats Trail with 16 1/2 Road and the road that goes to Fruita Reservoir #1 to create a five mile loop. It turned out to be a very nice ride and wasn’t too difficult for us who don’t ride our bikes very often. We passed a few deer along the trail and the mosquitoes were out in full force if we stopped for too long, so we made sure to keep moving. There were also plenty of wildflowers blooming along the trail. Here’s a few photos from our weekday ride.

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Colorado National Monument Sunset

Thursday, May 3, 2018

After a stormy day yesterday, I thought it might be nice to head up into the western end of the Colorado National Monument near Fruita to catch a sunset. Unfortunately, most of the clouds cleared up before sunset, so it was not as nice as I had hoped it would be. But it was a good excuse to test out my new Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II camera.

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An Afternoon at The Monument

Sunday, January 7, 2018

If you saw this post over on my mircoBLOG, you’ll know that my weekend didn’t go quite as planned. Since I came home early on Saturday night I decided to sleep in late on Sunday morning and had no plans to do anything for the rest of the day. However, in the early afternoon I noticed that a winter storm was going to be breaking up over the Grand Valley, so I headed over to the Colorado National Monument to see if I could take some photos. I was hoping there would be some cool atmospherics like during this visit to The Monument (I can’t believe that was almost five years ago!), but that would not happen this time.

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