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Stillwater Canyon: The Green River in Canyonlands

Floating from Mineral Bottom to The Confluence | Average CFS: 2,590
Friday – Wednesday, September 16-21, 2022

The time had finally come! It was time for me to float the Green River through Stillwater Canyon in Canyonlands National Park and I couldn’t have been more excited! I’ve wanted to float this stretch of the river for many years now but have always put it off for other trips because I was a little concerned about making it to The Confluence in time for the Jetboat shuttle. Our float down Meander Canyon was actually kind of a test to see how easy it would be for us to make that kind of distance in our inflatable kayaks at this time of the year, and we ended up coming up short by about eleven miles on that trip. Still, I made it one of my goals to finally get into Stillwater Canyon this year and booked the Jetboat shuttle back in February. This time I added an extra day to the trip just to make sure we would have enough time to make it to The Confluence. As usual, my friends Jackson and Chris were supposed to join me on this trip, but unfortunately Chris had to back out the week before, so this time it would just be me and Jackson.

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West Elk Wilderness: Cut Short on the Mill-Castle Trail

Saturday, August 13, 2022

This weekend Diane was able to get away from her clinical rotations for a bit so she could go on an overnight backpacking trip with me into the West Elk Wilderness. We planned to take it easy by hiking up the Mill-Castle Trail along Mill Creek and thought that maybe we could make it up to the top of Storm Pass for an overlook of The Castles before returning the same way back to the trailhead. Unfortunately, this time we didn’t made it much further beyond the nice waterfall in Mill Creek and ended up turning this backpacking trip into a day hike. This was an amazingly scenic canyon and we both really enjoyed the shorter hike, so we will definitely need to return here again in the future!

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Hagerman Pass and the Colorado Midland Railway

Wednesday – Saturday, July 27-30, 2022

This Thursday and Friday I was going to be attending the GIS Colorado Summer Meetup which was being held at Turquoise Lake near Leadville and then I planned to spend the rest of the weekend exploring the surrounding area. I was hoping to get plenty of hiking in during the evenings and over the weekend, but that didn’t end up happening and I spent most of the time meeting new people and relaxing around camp, which was a nice change of pace. Although the weather forecast had been calling for a wet and stormy couple of days at the end of the week, we didn’t see much rain at the campground, but it was still overcast and cloudy much of the time. These are some photos I took over the days I was in the area.

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A Morning in the Northern Snake Range

Saturday & Sunday, July 16-17, 2022

After hiking Telescope Peak and leaving Death Valley National Park earlier in the day, I stopped for a quick dinner in Tonopah and then continued driving east across the Great Basin of Nevada as I made my way back home. I made another quick stop for fuel and food in Ely and then continued on into the northern portion of Snake Range to find a place to spend the night at a higher elevation where it would be cooler out. After leaving the paved highway and driving across the bottom of Spring Valley, I followed the steep switchbacks of a narrow dirt road into the Humboldt National Forest in the dark and then stopped at the first decent campsite I found along the way. It was about 9:30pm when I finally stopped for the night and I was pretty tired since it had been a long day, so I quickly got into my sleeping bag and went to bed.

Telescope Peak: Towering Above Death Valley

Highpoint of the Panamint Range & Death Valley National Park
Friday & Saturday, July 15-16, 2022

For the past couple of years I have been trying to make plans to hike Telescope Peak, the highest peak in Death Valley National Park, but so far all of those plans had fallen through for one reason or another. However, now that I was in California for the past week, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity for me to finally make it there, although I was a little worried about hiking the peak after spending five days at sea level because it’s been a long time since I’ve been down at this low of an elevation. So, after spending way too much time around way too many people in San Diego this past week, I definitely needed to get back out on a long hike into the wilderness to decompress, so I made sure to take a detour into Death Valley National Park as I started my drive back home to Colorado!

Tag: rain

Stillwater Canyon: The Green River in Canyonlands

West Elk Wilderness: Cut Short on the Mill-Castle Trail

Hagerman Pass and the Colorado Midland Railway

A Morning in the Northern Snake Range

Telescope Peak: Towering Above Death Valley