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Tag: grand junction

West Rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon

Friday, November 3, 2017

This evening I wanted to squeeze in one more hike after work before the Daylight Savings Time change occurs this weekend and it will start getting dark too early for after-work hikes. I decided to head up to the Colorado National Monument so I could explore the West Rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon. Since I had hiked part of the East Rim last weekend, I wanted to see if a trail that is shown on the National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map of the area actually exists on the West Rim. I’ve looked into this trail before and never seen any mention of it on other maps, so I was curious to finally get on the ground in the area and see what I could find.

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No Thoroughfare Rim

Saturday, October 28, 2017

While we didn’t plan for it, Saturday turned out to be another day at home for us. After getting some stuff done around the house during the day I decided at the last minute that I needed to get out for a hike in the evening. About an hour and a half before sunset I headed over to the Colorado National Monument and planned to hike up the Old Gordon Trail for a few miles. However, shortly after starting to climb up the trail I decided I didn’t want to stay on the trail and instead I followed the rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon above Devil’s Kitchen for a while to see what kind of views I could find up there.

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Ute Canyon Autumn

Fall Colors 2017 | Sunday, October 22, 2017

This weekend we were originally planning on heading over the state line into Utah and spending a night camping north of Arches National Park. Unfortunately, I came down with a cold late in the week and we ended up staying home instead. After resting for Saturday and much of Sunday I decided to head up to the Colorado National Monument for sunset in the evening to see how the cottonwoods looked in Ute Canyon. I arrived at an unmarked overlook along the rim of the canyon shortly before sunset and found that the cottonwoods were still looking pretty good. I waited for the sun to go down and took a few photos right afterwards.

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No ThoroughFALL Canyon

Fall Colors 2017 | No Thoroughfare Canyon
Monday, October 16, 2017

No, the big canyon located at the east end of the Colorado National Monument hasn’t had a name change, it’s still named No Thoroughfare Canyon. But since I went on a short hike into the canyon this evening to check on the fall colors of the cottonwoods, I thought it was a fun take on the name. I try to head up into the Colorado National Monument each October to catch the cottonwoods changing colors, and as you can see from the photos below they were coming along nicely!

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Fall On The Grand Mesa 2017

Fall Colors 2017 | Monday, September 25, 2017

This evening I headed up onto the Grand Mesa after work for a couple of hours so I could try to catch a few fall colors this season with my camera. Unfortunately, the colors didn’t seem to be as good as they usually are with plenty of stripped trees and unhealthy looking leaves, but I managed to find a couple nice areas and used my long lens to help isolate the best colors. There was even a little snow still sticking around on the top of the mesa from the winter storm that came through over the weekend. I pretty much stuck to the highway and stayed around until sunset before heading back home. Here are a few photos from the evening…

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