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No Thoroughfare Canyon

Friday & Saturday, April 18-19, 2014

Since I have a three night backpacking trip coming up at the beginning of May and I never did get out on a backpacking trip last year, I wanted to get in a quick overnight trip this month. I have also wanted to camp in the backcountry of the Colorado National Monument and hike the full length of No Thoroughfare Canyon. I decided to take care of all three of these goals with an overnight backpacking trip through No Thoroughfare Canyon with my friend Jackson.

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Fruita Dugway

Sunday, April 13, 2014

My original plan for the day was to hike the Fruita Dugway trail first thing in the morning. I woke up early and was out the door well before the sun came up with hopes of catching a nice sunrise from the trail. I knew that rain was in the forecast for the day but I thought it might hold off for a few more hours after checking the forecast and weather maps before leaving my house. I was wrong. As I neared the trailhead just outside of Fruita the skies opened up and a very heavy rain began to fall, which was accompanied by strong winds and a little lightning. I would not be hiking anywhere local this morning, so I turned around and drove back home.

Colorado National Monument Traverse

The Face of the Monument | West to East
Saturday, April 12, 2014

Years ago I had the idea of hiking across the face of the Colorado National Monument from one entrance to the other but never seemed to get around to planning the route and following through on the hike because I was usually heading elsewhere for my weekends. A few weeks ago I told Diane about this idea and she was interested in joining me, so I finally got determined to follow through and started planning the route. Much of the route follows existing trails that I have hiked many times in the past, but there were a few segments that I needed to check out and find a few connecting off-trail routes between them. Over the past few weeks I have gone out a few times after work and scouted these segments to come up with the complete route.

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Otto’s Staircase

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

After work I decided to get a little hike in and explore a new area of the Colorado National Monument. I wanted to check out Otto’s Staircase above Gold Star Canyon and try to reach the top of Monument Mesa via this route. Please excuse my poor pictures in this trip report, when I set out after work to explore this new trail I didn’t really plan on taking any photos or even creating a trip report so I didn’t carry my camera with me. All of these photos were taken and processed on my iPhone. I ended up really enjoying this climb and taking a few photos with my iPhone so I wanted to share a them. I’m sure I will return to hike this trail again to do even more exploring on Monument Mesa. I will be sure to bring my better camera next time!

Gold Star Canyon Loop

Thursday, March 27, 2014

After work this evening, Diane and I met up for another short hike in the Colorado National Monument. We started from the White Rocks trailhead and then hiked the steep trail beside Gold Star Canyon up onto the Precambrian Bench. We followed the trail towards Monument Canyon and then turned around when we reached Mushroom Rock. Next we followed a wash down into Monument Canyon and hiked back to White Rocks by circling around the Little Island. It was a nice evening hike. I don’t usually carry my camera on these short after-work hikes but the clouds in the sky were pretty nice from the passing storms so I decided to bring it with me. I’m glad I did!

Tag: grand junction

No Thoroughfare Canyon

Fruita Dugway

Colorado National Monument Traverse

Otto’s Staircase

Gold Star Canyon Loop