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Little Park: Good Vibes, Snakeskin & Gunny Loop

After Work Adventures | Monday & Tuesday, August 19 & 20, 2024

I’m planning on getting out into the desert this upcoming weekend, so I thought it might be a good idea to go for a hike or two in the afternoon this week to try to get used to the heat, so I headed out to check out some of the trails near the Little Park Trailhead in the Bangs Canyon Recreation Area after work on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I made a short loop combining the Good Vibes Trail, Snakeskin Trail and the First Flats Trail and then on Tuesday I hiked part of the Gunny Loop and the Gunnector Trail in the same area. The temperature was in the upper 80’s on Monday and the mid 90’s on Tuesday, so it was pretty warm out both afternoons, especially in the sun, but thankfully there were some clouds in the sky that blocked the direct sunlight on occasion and helped it to feel a bit more comfortable out. Here are a couple photos I took during the two hikes.

Third Flats: Twist-N-Shout & Second Thoughts

After Work Adventures | Monday, July 1, 2024

I was originally planning to head up Lands End Road onto the Grand Mesa after work today so I could hike a section of the Palisade Plunge Trail, but as I was driving southeast on US 50 I saw some lightning in the direction I was headed and thought it would be best to turn around and come back another time when the weather was better. Instead, I returned to town and headed over to the Third Flats area of the Bangs Canyon Recreation Area where I hiked a short loop combining the Twist-N-Shout and Second Thoughts trails together. The temperature was in the low 90’s today, but it was cloudy enough with a nice breeze which helped keep the temperature comfortable enough for me. There were even a couple sprinkles of rain at times. Here are a couple photos from the short hike.

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Bangs Canyon: Rough Canyon Loop

After Work Adventures | Tuesday, April 23, 2024

As I’ve been trying to hike more local trails during the week, I realized that I had not hiked much of Rough Canyon within the Bangs Canyon Recreation Area and thought it was finally time to remedy that oversight after work today. So this afternoon I drove up to the Bangs Canyon Trailhead and started hiking down Rough Canyon from where it splits off from the more popular Mica Mine Trail. I mistakenly thought this was going to be an easy hike along a good trail the entire way, but there turned out to be a bit more scrambling and route-finding along the way than I was expecting. It was nothing too difficult, but I had just assumed there would be a well-used trail down the canyon since it’s in a popular area close to town. I followed the the canyon downstream until it opened up near the mouth of Cross Canyon and then met up with the Tabeguache Trail which I followed back up to the trailhead to complete a loop. It turned out to be a nice loop through a rugged canyon that’s pretty close to home.

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Third Flats: Cedar Point Road to Haystack 3 Point

After Work Adventures | Monday, April 1, 2024

When I left work this afternoon, I headed up into the Third Flats section of the Bangs Canyon Recreation Area so I could get in a short hike to a local highpoint before going home. Since I have pretty much completed hiking all of the Kokopelli Trails near Loma now, I figured this area would be a good place to focus my attention to for my next local trails project, especially since it’s close to town and I have not been on any of the trails in this area before, aside from the one time I drove up the Billings Canyon Jeep Trail back in 2006. I decided to start out by hiking up the Cedar Point Road to Haystack 3 Point while also hiking parts of the Quad Rocker, Easy Rider and Canyon View Trails along the way. There was a lot of stormy weather around the Grand Valley this afternoon which made for some dynamic and dramatic conditions along the way. Here are a couple photos from my short afternoon hike.

Ribbon Canyon Narrows

Bangs Canyon Recreation Area
Wednesday, April 29, 2020

This evening after work Diane and I went on a short hike into the narrows of Ribbon Canyon in the Bangs Canyon Recreation Area. Even though I had just hiked into this canyon about two weeks ago, Diane was not with me that day and I wanted to bring her back to visit this nice little canyon that’s close to home. The temperature out was in the mid-80’s this afternoon and the sky was clear, so the sun was blazing! It was a pretty warm hike along the trail until we reached the shaded canyon, where it was much more pleasant. Since I was just here recently I didn’t take my camera out very much on this visit, but I did take a couple of shots while we were in the narrows of the canyon.