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Tag: precambrian bench

White Rocks: Gold Star Canyon & The BenchWhite Rocks: Gold Star Canyon & The Bench

White Rocks: Gold Star Canyon & The Bench

Heart of the World | Sunday, October 26, 2025

After spending Saturday morning hiking a big loop in the Colorado National Monument that combined Ute Canyon and Monument Mesa, I returned again early on Sunday morning to hike a shorter loop near Gold Star Canyon from the White Rocks Trailhead. This time I would combine the Mushroom Rock Trail, Gold Star Canyon Trail, Bench Trail and Fenceline Trail to create a nice little 6-7 mile loop and end up back at the White Rocks. I started hiking up onto the Precambrian Bench at dawn and was able to make it to an overlook of Monument Canyon below Mushroom Rock just in time to watch the sunrise.

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Ute Canyon & Monument Mesa LoopUte Canyon & Monument Mesa Loop

Ute Canyon & Monument Mesa Loop

Heart of the World | Saturday, October 25, 2025

Even though I had to skip my annual Southern Utah Wanderings with Jared for the first time in about fourteen years, I am hoping to get back to my regular schedule of weekend adventures in the near future, but before I do I need to make sure that Diane is back to 100%, so in the meantime I will try to get out on some local hikes when I can. This weekend I had some time on Saturday to go on a local hike and decided to continue working on my Heart of the World project within the Colorado National Monument by putting together a loop consisting of the Ute Canyon Trail and Liberty Cap Trail that I had never hiked together before. I was a little worried about hiking over 13 miles after not hiking at all for the past month, but figured I would just jump right back in and hope for the best!

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A Quick Loop on the Corkscrew TrailA Quick Loop on the Corkscrew Trail

A Quick Loop on the Corkscrew Trail

Heart of the World | Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Although Diane and I have been busy this week getting ready to leave for the Grand Canyon on Friday morning, I felt like getting in a quick hike after work on Wednesday afternoon and decided to revisit the Corkscrew Trail loop in the Colorado National Monument so I could check another trail off my Heart of the World project. The last time I hiked the Corkscrew Trail was almost a decade ago when Diane and I went searching for dinosaur tracks in Ute Canyon, so I was looking forward to the return visit. Even though it had been getting pretty warm in the valley just a few short days ago, a cold front moved through the area overnight which significantly dropped the temperature out and made things a bit chilly on the hike today.

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Colorado National Monument: Bench Trail ArchColorado National Monument: Bench Trail Arch

Colorado National Monument: Bench Trail Arch

Thursday, April 9, 2020

This evening I went for a short hike into the Colorado National Monument so I could finally get a closer look at Bench Trail Arch. While I’ve hiked below this arch on the Bench Trail a number of times before, it’s always been in the middle of a longer hike through the Monument, so I’ve skipped climbing up to it to save my energy. After work I drove over to the Wildwood Trailhead and arrived just as the temperature out dropped by about ten degrees and it started to rain and get windy. I guess a good thing about the bad weather was that there were only a few other vehicles in the parking lot, which can sometimes be a busy location. I checked the radar on my weather app and saw that this storm system was going to pass through pretty quickly, so I started hiking anyway. It was a little chilly and I got soaked at first, but once the rain and wind stopped, I dried off pretty quickly and warmed up again. Of course, all the rain made it pretty humid out for the rest of the hike, which was not very comfortable.

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The Face of The MonumentThe Face of The Monument

The Face of The Monument

Colorado National Monument Traverse VI | Grand Junction to Fruita
Sunday, March 10, 2019

After a couple weekends off from adventures because of wet weather and travelling for concerts, it was finally time to get back outside! Although the weather forecast for this weekend wasn’t looking the best, it was certainly looking better than it had over the past couple of weeks, so I planned for us to do our sixth annual Colorado National Monument Traverse on Sunday. This year we were planning to do a repeat of our very first traverse across the face of the Monument that we did back in 2014, except this time we would be hiking it in the opposite direction from the East Entrance near Grand Junction to the West Entrance near Fruita. Since it had been over five years since the last time we hiked this entire route, we were looking forward to it!

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