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Tag: lower black ridge road

Rattlesnake Canyon: West Rim Arch (Finger Arch)Rattlesnake Canyon: West Rim Arch (Finger Arch)

Rattlesnake Canyon: West Rim Arch (Finger Arch)

After Work Adventures | Tuesday, September 5, 2023

This morning as I was leaving home on my way to work I noticed that there was a coolness to the air that I haven’t felt for a couple of months down in the Grand Valley. It certainly felt like fall is finally on the way! Since the temperature stayed nice throughout the rest of the day I thought it would be a great afternoon to go for a local hike when I got out of work. I stopped home at lunch to grab my hiking gear and then left from work and headed up into the Canyons of the Black Ridge so I could hike to West Rim Arch, which is also known as Finger Arch and is located at the upper end of Rattlesnake Canyon. I’ve been meaning to get over to the base of this arch since 2020 when I was on a kick visiting other arches in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness during the pandemic lockdowns, but I never got around to it and have kept putting it off for the past few years, so I was looking forward to finally getting a closer look.

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Edna Mine & Devils Canyon OverlookEdna Mine & Devils Canyon Overlook

Edna Mine & Devils Canyon Overlook

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Tuesday, April 19, 2022

I’ve really been slacking on my After Work Adventures for a while now and had really hoped to change that this spring, but so far I haven’t got out for one hike during the week this year. Well, that finally changed today when I left after work and headed back up into the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness to search for the Edna Mine, which is an old Uranium mine found near the head of Devils Canyon that was active during the 1950’s and 1960’s. The temperature was into the low 80’s when I started hiking and the sky was pretty cloudy, but the strong winds helped keep me cool and the clouds started to open up a bit while I was exploring the mine, so it turned out to be a very pleasant afternoon for a hike.

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The Search for Goblin GulchThe Search for Goblin Gulch

The Search for Goblin Gulch

Canyons of the Black Ridge: Trailing the Ghosts and Gnomes of Goblin Gulch
Tuesday, May 5, 2020

When Will Minor started to hunt for a small band of strayed Angora goats he little dreamed he soon would have cause to forget them. As he entered a tiny canyon he suddenly came face to face with the weirdest collection of natural forms he ever had seen. The soft white sandstone of the canyon walls was covered with faces and figures—some animal, some human, some resembling modernistic sculpture and others like nightmarish creatures which only a writer of horror fiction could conceive.

– Desert Magazine, May 1944

Last week while I was going down the rabbit hole of searching online for more information about Will Minor and the High Trail, I came across an old magazine article that was written by him called Trailing the Ghosts and Gnomes of Goblin Gulch. This article was featured in the May, 1944 issue of Desert Magazine and was about a place he found many stone faces weathered from soft white sandstone just below Black Ridge that he called Goblin Gulch. I had never heard or seen anything about this location before, but the article and photos really piqued my interest and I knew I would have to try to find this forgotten place hidden within the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness!

CONTINUE READINGThe Search for Goblin Gulch
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