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Tag: i-70

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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Big Wash

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Recently I’ve been trying to get out on more hikes in the evening after work before the days start getting too short for that. Today I was looking for something close to home without too much elevation gain and settled on hiking up Big Wash which is located a short distance up Plateau Creek from I-70 along the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway. Big Wash drains part of the west side of the Grand Mesa starting up near Chalk Mountain and joins Plateau Creek just upstream from the Colorado River. It turned out to be a nice easy canyon hike with a trickle of water flowing through the canyon. While the water was nice to listen to as I hiked, it made for some very slick mud. I had to hop across rocks through many parts of the canyon to avoid the slippery mud. There were a couple of easy obstacles to scramble up and bypass, I just had to make sure to avoid the poison ivy at one of the bypasses. The hike ended at an overhanging waterfall inside a large wet alcove. I didn’t see a way around it so I turned around and headed back down. Here are a few photos from the short hike.

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Stagecoach Trail

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

To be honest, I didn’t really plan on hiking the Stagecoach Trail today. When I left my house after work this afternoon to go on a hike I had my sights set on visiting the summit of Mount Lincoln using a short section of the Stagecoach Trail for access. However, as I climbed the trail towards the top of the Little Book Cliffs, dark clouds developed and moved in over the Grand Valley along with a little rain and a few distant rumbles of thunder, so I decided it would probably be best to skip the summit this evening and finish the Stagecoach Trail loop instead. It turns out that the Stagecoach Trail is pretty fun and offers some nice views of the Little Book Cliffs, Mount Garfield and the surrounding valley. I’ll have to return another day for Mount Lincoln!

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Moore Fun East

Monday, March 14, 2016

After hiking the west side of the Moore Fun trail last week, I headed back to the Kokopelli Trailhead after work this evening to hike the east side of the trail to it’s high point. While the trailhead was actually closer to the high point on this side, the trail was full of switchbacks and the length was a bit longer. With a storm moving across the valley it was very windy the entire hike but I did manage to miss the rain and I wouldn’t see the first raindrops of the incoming storm until I was almost home.

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