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Upper No Thoroughfare Canyon

Heart of the World | Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Well, here it is! This is my last hike in the Colorado National Monument for my Heart of the World project and I managed to finish them all up before the end of the year! To be honest, I did have some time when I could have completed this final hike in November, but I purposely waited until December so I could get in a hike during each month of the year, which wasn’t a goal when I initially started this project back on New Years Day, but it just kind of happened naturally and I decided to stick with it about halfway through the year. I guess that waiting until December was a little too late for this particular hike since the trail was covered with some snow in the shaded areas by now, but I figured that might be the case and brought along my microspikes. As much as I would have liked to have hiked the entire length of No Thoroughfare Canyon for this project, the days are just too short at this time of the year for me to squeeze that kind of hike in after work, plus the only section of an ‘official’ trail in Upper No Thoroughfare Canyon are the switchbacks at the very top, so I figured I would be good just hiking down the trail a few miles and then returning the same way.

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Old Gordon Trail: Historic Toll Road to Glade Park

Heart of the World | Thursday, November 6, 2025

As it’s getting closer to the end of the year and I’m getting very close to completing all of the trails for my Heart of the World project in the Colorado National Monument, I thought today would be a good day to hike the Old Gordon Trail right after work. While this has never really been one of my favorite trails in the Monument, which is probably why I haven’t hiked the entire trail since 2011, that’s part of the reason I started this project and I was a little interested in seeing the trail again with fresh eyes since it’s been so long. After work I headed over to the Devils Kitchen Trailhead and started hiking up the Old Gordon Trail which follows the route of a historic toll road built by John Gordon in the 1880’s that was used to move stock and timber between Glade Park and the Grand Valley. The temperature out this afternoon was mostly comfortable and nice, but it was a bit breezy at times which made it feel cold- but not quite cold enough for me to want to put on a jacket. The round-trip hike was 7.5 miles with about 1700 feet of elevation gain which I finished up in just about three hours.

Ribbon Canyon

Bangs Canyon Recreation Area
Wednesday, April 15, 2020

This evening after work I headed out to explore a local canyon that’s found near The Ribbon Trail in the Bangs Canyon Recreation Area, just outside of the Colorado National Monument. Earlier this year I had come across a recent canyoneering trip report for this canyon, which they called Ribbon Canyon, and I thought it looked like it would be a nice place to visit after work one day. Well, now that I have to stay closer to home, I figured that this would be the perfect opportunity to check out this short canyon! Although the canyoneers who posted the original trip report had rappelled down into the canyon from above, I thought I’d hike up from the bottom to see how far I could get. It turns out that I was able to see the best parts of the canyon before I got stopped by a high dryfall. I must say, this is probably the nicest canyon that I have ever visited this close to home, and I really enjoyed my evening spent here!

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The Ribbon Trail to White Rocks

Colorado National Monument Traverse V
Easter | Sunday, April 1, 2018

This weekend Diane and I stayed close to home so we could go on our annual Colorado National Monument Traverse on Sunday. This yearly hike has sort of become a tradition for us where we plan a longer hike through the Colorado National Monument by combining existing trails and off-trail routes. This is the fifth year we have planned a hike like this and this time I wanted to do something on the east side of the Monument that included No Thoroughfare Canyon. If you are interested in checking out our previous traverses, you can find links to those trip reports here: Traverses of the Colorado National Monument

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West Rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon

Friday, November 3, 2017

This evening I wanted to squeeze in one more hike after work before the Daylight Savings Time change occurs this weekend and it will start getting dark too early for after-work hikes. I decided to head up to the Colorado National Monument so I could explore the West Rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon. Since I had hiked part of the East Rim last weekend, I wanted to see if a trail that is shown on the National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map of the area actually exists on the West Rim. I’ve looked into this trail before and never seen any mention of it on other maps, so I was curious to finally get on the ground in the area and see what I could find.

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Upper No Thoroughfare Canyon

Old Gordon Trail: Historic Toll Road to Glade Park

Ribbon Canyon

The Ribbon Trail to White Rocks

West Rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon