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Tag: opal hill

Fruita Frontcountry: Snooks Bottom & Opal Hill Loop

After Work Adventures | Tuesday, April 28, 2026

After leaving work this afternoon I stopped home to pick up Diane and then we headed over to Snooks Bottom along the Colorado River near Fruita so we could go on a short loop hike around the little lake found there and Opal Hill on trails that neither of us had ever been on before. It was quite a bit windier out than we were expecting it to be, but it turned out to be a nice little three mile loop. It’s kind of hard to believe, but this is actually my very first After Work Adventure of the year. I guess I have been really slacking this year! Here are a few photos from our short hike.

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Al Look Hill: Fruita Paleo Area to Flume Creek

Fruita Frontcountry | Wednesday, October 29, 2025

I was originally hoping to leave after work today and head over into the Canyons of the Escalante for four days to try and salvage part of my annual Southern Utah Wanderings trip that I missed earlier in the month, but Diane was still having some possible concerning issues with her recovery and I thought it would be best to stay close to home for now. Instead, I ended up going on a hike after work on a few different segments of trails surrounding Al Look Hill within the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area between the Fruita Paleo Area and Flume Creek Canyon. The total hike turned out to be about six miles and consisted mostly of trail segments that I had never hiked before.

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Fruita Frontcountry: Devils Ridge & Devils Canyon

After Work Adventures | Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Now that Daylight Savings Time is officially here and it’s staying lighter longer after work I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage and get outside for a hike this afternoon. I decided to head on over to the frontcountry trails found at the mouth of Devils Canyon in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area near Fruita to hike the Devils Ridge Trail (D7) which I had tried to hike back in August of last year but was turned around by muddy conditions. It turned out to be a nice way to spend a couple of hours after work before heading home for the rest of the evening.

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Fruita Frontcountry: Flash Flood in Devils Canyon

After Work Adventures | Friday, August 23, 2024

Since I was actually home on a Friday evening, I made a last-minute decision to go on a local hike in the Devils Canyon section of the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area near Fruita. Although I had finished hiking all the trails in this section of the frontcountry back in 2016, I had recently looked at an updated map and noticed a new trail called Devils Ridge (D7) that wasn’t there back then, so I thought I’d go check it out as part of a short loop hike. Even though the weather has been quite wet and stormy recently, it looked like the storms in the area were going to miss us this afternoon, so I headed over to the trailhead after work. Of course, just as I reached the trailhead it started to rain pretty hard, so I waited in my Jeep for the storm to pass and then started my hike as soon as the rain mostly stopped.

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Return to the High Trail & Opal Hill

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Well, just like last year it appears that I’ve been slacking on my After Work Adventures again this spring, but part of the reason for that is the wet weather we had been having around here for a while. To remedy this situation I decided to head out after work this afternoon for a repeat hike of the High Trail in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness since it’s one I’ve been wanting to get back to for a while now. During the day I almost cancelled the hike since the weather hadn’t been cooperating as it had been raining and snowing off and on, but as I was leaving work I checked the forecast one last time and thought it looked like it might finally be clearing up, so I decided to go for it. This turned out to be a good decision since the weather held out and it was a great evening for a local hike!

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