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Ring Around The Island: Fog in Wedding Canyon

Colorado National Monument | Sunday, September 14, 2025

This weekend Diane wanted to hike the Wedding Canyon Loop in the Colorado National Monument with me on Sunday morning since we might not be able to hike together again for a little while, so I planned to stay close to home so we could do that. Although I was originally planning to spend Saturday morning hiking in the mountains near Ouray, the weather forecast wasn’t looking good and I changed my mind after work on Friday and decided to just stay home and work on my 4Runner instead. This was probably the right call since there was a lot of rain, flash-flooding and even a few rare tornadoes in the Four Corners region and Western Colorado on Saturday! On Sunday morning we got up early, left home at dawn and started hiking from the Lower Monument Canyon Trailhead just before sunrise. To our surprise, as we crossed over the low divide between Monument Canyon and Wedding Canyon we found that the valley on the other side was filled with fog which made for some amazing and beautiful conditions as we hiked into Wedding Canyon.

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Upper Monument Canyon to Independence Monument

Heart of the World | Sunday, July 6, 2025

Since I ended up cancelling my planned backpacking trip this weekend and headed home early, I spent Saturday working on the new 4Runner and then decided to continue my Heart of the World project in the Colorado National Monument early on Sunday morning with a hike into upper Monument Canyon. Although I have hiked into and through Monument Canyon many times over the years, I don’t recall ever hiking up the upper portion of the trail before so I thought it would be fun to hike down the upper trail to Independence Monument and then return the same way, especially since I’ve already hiked the lower trail earlier this year. So after getting up early on Sunday morning I drove up to the Upper Monument Canyon Trailhead and started hiking down the trail shortly before sunrise.

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Black Ridge Trail – Rim Rock Drive Hike n’ Bike Loop

Heart of the World | Sunday, June 1, 2025

While Diane and I were originally planning to beat the heat this weekend by backpacking on top of the Grand Mesa, after driving up onto the Mesa Saturday morning we found that the road to our desired trailhead was still gated and closed so we decided to just return home to take a break and relax instead. Of course, I just couldn’t stay home all weekend, so I decided to head up into the Colorado National Monument very early on Sunday morning so I could continue working on my Heart of the World project by hiking the Black Ridge Trail and then competing a loop by riding my bike back to the trailhead on Rim Rock Drive. Although it seems pretty popular among road bikers, I have never really had the desire to bike any part of Rim Rock Drive before, but I thought it might be fun to try it once. I left home well before sunrise on Sunday morning and dropped my bike off at the Upper Liberty Cap Trailhead before continuing on to the other end of the trail at the Visitor Center to start the hike.

Flume Creek Canyon Loop

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Wednesday, May 7, 2025

While hiking over the Pollock Bench on my way to the West Fork of Pollock Canyon on Sunday morning I noticed a well-used trail below the rim on the west side of Flume Creek Canyon that I had never hiked before and which wasn’t on any of the maps I looked at. After waiting out some wet weather over the past two days I decided to return after work this afternoon so I could check this trail out. I left from the Pollock Bench Trailhead and followed the trail which contoured below the rim on the west side of Flume Creek Canyon until it joined back up with the Flume 1 Trail a couple of miles up the canyon. Then I followed the main trail back along the rim of the narrows until I was able to descend to the Inner Canyon Trail and follow that back to the trailhead. This turned out to make a nice little 5.5 mile loop that I completed in just under two hours before heading home.

Gore Trail Loop & West Fork of Pollock Canyon

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, May 2-4, 2025

Since I have another week-long river trip coming up very soon that I need to start getting ready for, I stayed local this weekend and decided to go on a pair of backcountry hikes that are located within the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness. These are two hikes that I’ve been thinking about doing for a number of years at this point, but I have never made them a priority to get around to before and figured it was finally time to give them a go! The first hike I wanted to try follows an old 4×4 road that shows up on some maps as the Gore Trail and encircles a mesa located between the heads of Knowles Canyon and Jones Canyon. It looked like this loop was going to be around 16 miles in length, which includes a couple miles on BS Road to close the loop, and since I wanted to get an early start on Saturday morning I headed up to Glade Park later on Friday afternoon and spent the night on the edge of Sieber Canyon.

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Ring Around The Island: Fog in Wedding Canyon

Upper Monument Canyon to Independence Monument

Black Ridge Trail – Rim Rock Drive Hike n’ Bike Loop

Flume Creek Canyon Loop

Gore Trail Loop & West Fork of Pollock Canyon