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Tag: i-70

The Kokopelli Trail to Salt Creek

McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area
Tuesday, April 21, 2020

This evening Diane and I headed over to the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area near Rabbit Valley so we could spend the evening hiking a short section of the Kokopelli Trail. Although I have driven, hiked and even biked much of the Kokopelli Trail over the years, there are still a few sections of singletrack that I have missed. Today I thought it would be fun to hike one of those sections which descends down to Salt Creek from near the end of the Sidewinder Road on the west side. The trail then crosses a bridge over Salt Creek and connects up to the Troy Built Trail on the other side of the canyon.

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Packrafting the Colorado River: Fruita to Loma

Sunday, September 15, 2019

After spending Saturday morning in the mountains near Telluride, I decided to stay closer to home on Sunday so I could try out my brand new packraft on the Colorado River. I was originally planning on buying a new packraft over the winter so that I could take it on some trips that I am tentatively planning for the spring, but I ended up buying it a little early thanks to a Labor Day sale. I ended up picking up a Kokopelli Rogue-Lite since I don’t really plan on running any big rapids with it and wanted one that was pretty light since I’m going to need to carry it in my backpack on occasion. For my first time on the water with it I wanted to do something easy to see how it handles, so I decided to drive to Loma and then ride my bike back to the boat ramp at the Fruita Section of the James M Robb – Colorado River State Park. I would lock my bike up there and then float back to the Loma Boat Ramp where I would get back in my Jeep and then pick my bike back up on the way back home. It worked out well and I had a nice afternoon on the Colorado River!

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Reef Madness: Cave Canyon & Arch Tower

The San Rafael Reef
Saturday, January 12, 2019

Since Diane took an extra shift at work today I decided to drive over into Utah so I could do a little hiking on the northern San Rafael Reef since I hadn’t been back out that way since last January. I just hoped I wouldn’t lose a wheel on my Jeep this time since I’d be driving down that same road again! When I woke up this morning there was a fresh layer of snow on the ground at my house, so I checked the weather forecast and it looked like the snow ended near the state line, so I continued on with my plans for the day. After leaving home I drove through some very dense fog on I-70 from Grand Junction all the way to the Westwater exit and then through more patchy fog until the Cisco exit. This slowed down the drive considerably, so it’s probably a good thing I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere this morning. After passing the Cisco exit it was clear blue skies as far as I could see and it would stay that way for the rest of the day.

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Glenwood Canyon Recreation Trail

Saturday, March 31, 2018

After spending the last seven weekends hiking and backpacking in Utah, I figured it was finally time to take a break and stay closer to home on the western slope of Colorado this weekend. Since I finally got a hitch-mounted bike rack for my Jeep that will carry both of our bikes this past week, I wanted to give it a try this weekend. We haven’t used our bikes in a while and we would like to change that, so we thought a good way to ease back into it would be by taking a nice scenic ride on the Glenwood Canyon Recreation Trail near Glenwood Springs. While I’ve driven through this canyon countless times, hiked to Hanging Lake a few times, and even floated part of the river a couple of times, I had never taken my bike on the paved trail through the canyon before.

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Super Blue Blood Moon

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

This morning I got up extra early so I could head out and photograph the Super Blue Blood Moon before work. For anyone not familiar, though I’m not sure how you couldn’t be since it’s been all over social media and the news, last night’s moon was a celestial trifecta since it was a Super Moon (meaning it’s a little bit closer to the Earth), a Blue Moon (the second full moon in one calendar month) and a Blood Moon (called that because it turns the color red during a total lunar eclipse).

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