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Tag: little book cliffs

The Palisade Rim: Lower Loop & Upper Loop Trails

After Work Adventures | Friday, September 25, 2026

I was originally planning to head on over to the Gunnison Gorge for a hike after work today, but shortly before leaving work I checked the weather and saw that there was a storm right over the area I wanted to hike in, and since the road to the trailhead goes through a lot of clay I thought it would be a good idea to skip that for today and stay a little closer to home. While I have hiked the lower Palisade Rim Trail a few times before, I have never actually hiked the upper loop before and have been meaning to do that for quite a while, so I decided to drive over to Palisade to where the Book Cliffs collide with the Grand Mesa and hike both of those loops instead.

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The Colorado River: Palisade Rim to Riverbend Park

After Work Adventures | Tuesday, July 9, 2024 | Average CFS: 3,860

This afternoon Jackson and I headed out after work to go for a short float with our packrafts on the Colorado River from the Palisade Rim Trailhead to the Riverbend Park in Palisade. As we get very close to floating all of the Colorado River from Glenwood Canyon to Lake Powell, this was one of the few remaining sections of the river left for both of us. The water level of the river has dropped quickly and significantly over the past week, so it was moving a little slower than our past couple of trips further upstream and we had to watch out for rocks just under the surface, but the entire float still took us less than an hour and we were home in time for dinner.

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Lower Palisade Plunge & Palisade Rim Trails

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Well, you could say that 2024 has not started off on the right foot for me! On New Year’s Day I was planning on hiking in the Colorado National Monument to start off the new year right, but when I went to leave early in the morning my Jeep wouldn’t start. I was pretty positive that it wasn’t the battery and could hear that the engine was making a loud knocking sound as it was trying to turn over, so my heart sank as I realized there was most likely something wrong internally to the engine. So much for my first hike of the year! Later in the day when it warmed up a bit outside I made sure the battery was good and that there wasn’t something simple wrong, and then I had my Jeep towed over to the dealership so it could be looked at. Luckily, my Jeep is still just barely covered under the Powertrain Warranty. Anyway, since my Jeep is still waiting to be diagnosed I was stuck at home this weekend, but was able to borrow Diane’s car on Saturday morning so I could at least go on a local hike. I was hoping to get in a hike with some elevation gain as training for a longer upcoming hike later this month, so I decided to give the lower Palisade Plunge Trail a try. The last time I had hiked the nearby Palisade Rim Trail the Plunge Trail didn’t even exist, so this would be all new terrain for me.

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Little Book Cliffs: Main Canyon to Cottonwood Canyon

Labor Day Weekend | Sunday, September 3, 2023

Last week, after cutting my trip into the High Plateaus of Utah short, I came home on Friday with the intention of heading up into the San Juan Mountains over the weekend, but instead I ended up being lazy and staying home all day Saturday. I didn’t want to stay at home the entire weekend, so on Sunday morning I got up early and headed over to the Little Book Cliffs so I could hike up Main Canyon to it’s junction with Cottonwood Canyon. I had hiked a couple miles up Main Canyon back in 2016, but was turned around by thunderstorms that evening, so I was looking forward to finishing up the rest of the trail this time.

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Hoodoo Trail

Sunday, November 4, 2018

For a change, Diane and I actually stayed home this weekend! It seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve done that! We went for a bike ride along the Colorado River on a new section of the Riverfront Trail on Saturday and then went on a hike on the Hoodoo Trail in the Little Book Cliffs on Sunday morning. Since rain was predicted for the early afternoon we got an early start so we would hopefully be finished with the hike by the time it arrived. I had hoped the nice clouds in the sky would stick around as we left home shortly after sunrise, but the sky quickly became completely overcast after we started hiking and stayed that way for the rest of the day. Since it was looking pretty gloomy out I didn’t end of taking very many photos, but I’ll share the ones I did take below. We did end up seeing two wild horses in the canyon, but they were too far away to get a photo of.

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