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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.

Big Water in Cataract Canyon: The Colorado River

Utah’s Biggest Whitewater in Canyonlands National Park | Average CFS: 31,500
Friday – Sunday, May 31 – June 2, 2024

As many of you already know, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time exploring, hiking, backpacking, Jeeping and floating the rivers within Canyonlands National Park over the years. However, Cataract Canyon has been the one section of the Colorado River in Canyonlands that has eluded me over that time. Since there’s a pretty good chance I might never have the opportunity to navigate the large rapids of Cataract Canyon on a private river trip, I figured this would probably be a good place to try out a commercial river trip for the first time and see how it goes. So late last year I booked a 3-day motorized trip with Mild To Wild Rafting and then my friend Jackson did the same for his family so we could go on the trip together. Since we would be in a large raft with an experienced guide on this trip instead of in our little inflatable kayaks, we tried to time the trip to coincide with the highest water of the year that typically happens during spring runoff in late May and early June, and I think we ended up doing a pretty good job on the timing.

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The Twists and Turns of Salt Creek Canyon

Canyonlands National Park | Thursday – Monday, April 4-8, 2024

After a rugged hike around Navajo Mountain last year, Dave, Jared and I decided to return to a very familiar place in Canyonlands National Park for our annual spring backpacking trip this year as we started making plans to continue exploring the twists and turns of Salt Creek Canyon a few months ago. Although we have all hiked into Salt Creek many times over the years, I hadn’t been back to the middle section of the canyon since our first hike down the length of the canyon just about ten years ago, and I was looking forward to returning! I left from work on Thursday afternoon and made my way to Indian Creek Country for the evening where I found a campsite and watched a colorful sunset on the surrounding cliffs while waiting for Dave and Jared to arrive.

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Trails of the Richardson Amphitheater

Castleton Tower to Professor Valley | Sunday, March 17, 2024

I was originally planning to spend this weekend south of Green River in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness, but apparently the weather had other plans for me. While I was at work on Friday I kept a close eye on the forecast and hoped that there might be a change, but by the time I was ready to leave the forecast was still calling for a very wet Saturday across the Colorado Plateau, so I cancelled those plans and headed home instead, hoping that I would be able to get out hiking on Sunday, at the very least. So when Sunday rolled around I left home early headed over to the Richardson Amphitheater to hike a couple of trails since I didn’t feel like driving too far from home. It turned out to be a good decision since there were low-hanging clouds surrounding the valley when I arrived shortly before sunrise. I made my way to the western end of the amphitheater to hike the Sylvester Trail at sunrise and enjoyed taking photos along the way while the spires, buttes and mesas played hide-and-seek in the clouds.

Tag: moab

La Sal Mountains: Warner Lake to Gold Knob

( ЯR ) The Rimrocker Trail: Montrose to Moab

Big Water in Cataract Canyon: The Colorado River

The Twists and Turns of Salt Creek Canyon

Trails of the Richardson Amphitheater