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La Sal Mountains: Warner Lake to Gold Knob

Juneteenth | Tuesday – Wednesday, June 18-19, 2024

Surprisingly, it’s been almost three years since my last visit to the La Sal Mountains near Moab and I’ve definitely been overdue for a return since I still have a couple of peaks left in the range to hike. Since I had Wednesday off for Juneteenth, I left from work on Tuesday afternoon and headed up to the Warner Lake Campground so I could start getting my lungs and legs ready for the mountain hiking season with an easier hike up to the summit of Gold Knob in the morning. After arriving at the campground I went for a short loop hike nearby and then returned to watch the sunset from Warner Lake before getting to bed early.

( ЯR ) The Rimrocker Trail: Montrose to Moab

Getting Lost in the West End: Across the Uncompahgre Plateau & La Sal Mountains
Friday – Sunday, June 7-9, 2024

After having an amazing time on the river in Cataract Canyon last weekend, I wanted to take it easy and stay a bit closer to home this weekend. With warmer temperatures in the valleys and still too much snow in the high country for me, I thought this might be a great opportunity to finally take a scenic weekend drive across the Uncompahgre Plateau and La Sal Mountains from Montrose to Moab on the Rimrocker Trail, while also taking the time to stop for a few short hikes and side trips along the way. The Rimrocker Trail was created in 2016 by linking up existing roads in this remote area of Western Colorado, many of which I have already driven over the past twenty years, especially while I was working on mapping out a 4X4 route of the Tabeguache Trail and Paradox Trail. But even though I have already driven many of these roads before, it’s been a long time and I really don’t remember very much about them, so I was looking forward to the refresher on this 160 mile route. So after spending Friday evening in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, I drove across the Uncompahgre River Valley and found a campsite near Temple Park and the beginning of the Rimrocker Trail so I could get an early start on Saturday morning.

The Highest Point in Grand County: Mount Waas

La Sal Mountains Peak Bagging | Pilot Mountain, Green Mountain & Mineral Mountain
Friday – Saturday, July 5-6, 2019

After spending the last month on the river it was finally time for me to start getting back into the mountains again! Like last year around this same time, I decided that this would be a good weekend to continue my peak-bagging pursuit in the La Sal Mountains near Moab. Since I’d already climbed the San Juan County High Point a couple years ago, I thought it was about time that I finally got to the summit of the Grand County High Point. Originally, Diane was supposed to come with me on this trip and we were going to spend the full weekend in the area, but at the last minute she decided to take a shift at work on Saturday, so I ended up going by myself. I’m not going to lie, I was very worried about this hike. Since I’ve been on the river every weekend for the last month I felt that I was quite a bit out of shape since I haven’t been hiking much lately. It feels like I haven’t put on my hiking boots in forever; not to mention that I haven’t been up in the high country since late September of last year! I was really concerned that I wasn’t going to make it to the summit this time, but still, I knew that I needed to try…

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Burro Pass Peaks

La Sal Mountains Peak Bagging | Manns Peak, Mount Tomasaki & Haystack Mountain
Independence Day | Wednesday, July 4, 2018

This year the Fourth of July fell right in the middle of the week and since Diane had to work one holiday this year she chose this one since we wouldn’t be able to plan a big weekend trip around it. I had the day off from work, so I decided to spend the holiday continuing my quest to climb all of the main peaks in the La Sal Mountains near Moab. Not only is the mountain range pretty close to home, but I was also hoping it wouldn’t be as busy as the mountains of Colorado can be during a holiday. I actually started my quest to hike all of the major peaks in the La Sal Mountains two years ago on the Fourth of July weekend with Mount Tukuhnikivatz. Then I continued with Mount Peale (12,721) later that same year. I guess I never made it back last year, so it was definitely time to return again! This time I was planning on hiking a few of the summits in the middle portion of the range near the headwaters of Mill Creek, starting with Manns Peak (12,272) and Mount Tomasaki (12,239) and then going from there depending on how I was feeling afterwards.

Mount Tukuhnikivatz

La Sal Mountains Peak Bagging
Independence Day Weekend | Saturday – Monday, July 2-4, 2016

“All around the peaks of the Sierra La Sal lies the desert, a sea of burnt rock, arid tablelands, barren and desolate canyons. The canyon country is revealed from this magnificent height as on a map and I can image, if not read, the names on the land.” -Edward Abbey

This weekend Diane and I headed to the La Sal Mountains near Moab to spend the Fourth of July weekend hiking and camping. I had intended for this to be a peak-bagging trip, but unfortunately the stormy weather would only allow me to climb Mount Tukuhnikivatz this time. Even though I didn’t get to climb more mountains this trip, we did have a nice relaxing time at camp, did a little exploring in the Jeep and I was able to photograph some nice sunrises and sunsets, thanks to the weather.

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Tag: la sal mountain loop road

La Sal Mountains: Warner Lake to Gold Knob

( ЯR ) The Rimrocker Trail: Montrose to Moab

The Highest Point in Grand County: Mount Waas

Burro Pass Peaks

Mount Tukuhnikivatz