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Tag: old gordon trail

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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No Thoroughfare Rim

Saturday, October 28, 2017

While we didn’t plan for it, Saturday turned out to be another day at home for us. After getting some stuff done around the house during the day I decided at the last minute that I needed to get out for a hike in the evening. About an hour and a half before sunset I headed over to the Colorado National Monument and planned to hike up the Old Gordon Trail for a few miles. However, shortly after starting to climb up the trail I decided I didn’t want to stay on the trail and instead I followed the rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon above Devil’s Kitchen for a while to see what kind of views I could find up there.

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Lower Bangs Canyon

Veteran’s Day | Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Since I had Veteran’s Day off from work but Diane still had to go to work and school, I contacted Marty over the weekend to see if he was up for some hiking. He was, so we planned to stay close to home and explore the lower reaches of Bangs Canyon just outside of Grand Junction this morning. After a night of rain and snow we knew it was going to be a wet hike. I met Marty at the trailhead just outside of Whitewater along East Creek at the mouth of Unaweep Canyon about an hour after sunrise.

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No Thoroughfare Canyon Loop

Saturday, October 24, 2015

This morning I went on a new hike in the Colorado National Monument with Jackson and Chris from work. Our plan was to create a loop that combined parts of the No Thoroughfare Canyon Trail and the Old Gordon Trail while visiting a little-known arch along the way. We would connect the two trails up by hiking up a short side-canyon and then scrambling up a steep gully behind the arch to the rim of the canyon. This route ended up creating a nice seven mile loop through the backcountry and visited Windowpane Arch (No Thoroughfare Window) and the remains of an old cabin. It was a great morning for a hike, minus the excessive humidity we had to deal with.

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Old Gordon Trail

Colorado National Monument
Thanksgiving | Thursday, November 24, 2011

Amanda had to work for a few hours on Thanksgiving, so while she was at work I decided to head on over to the Colorado National Monument and hike the Old Gordon Trail. It’s one of the few trails in the park that I had not hiked before. I was actually surprised to find that the park rangers were actually working on Thanksgiving. There were also plenty of people in the park, but they all seemed to be in No Thoroughfare Canyon or on the Serpents Trail because I had the Old Gordon Trail all to myself. I didn’t run into anyone else up there, which was nice.

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