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Ouray Trails: Bear Creek & Bridge of Heaven

Saturday & Sunday, July 26-27, 2014

After staying up late on Friday night to catch a concert in Grand Junction, we slept in a little later on Saturday morning before driving down to Ouray to get some hiking in for the weekend. The plan was to hike two trails that have been on my list for a number of years. I have planned to hike both of these trails on previous occasions, but something has always come up and prevented me from doing so. We started out by hiking the Bear Creek Trail just outside of Ouray along the Million Dollar Highway. I did manage to hike a short section of this trail a few years back, but was short on time and didn’t get very far. This time we were planning on hiking to the Grizzly Bear Mine and back since we started later in the morning and knew the afternoon storms would be moving in soon.

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Maze Memorial Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend | Friday – Monday, May 23-26, 2014

It’s been over three years since I have been to the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park and I have been wanting to get back. Earlier this year I decided to try out Canyonlands’ new online permit system and got a permit for a few campsites in The Maze over Memorial Day weekend. The last time I was in The Maze we camped in the Land of Standing Rocks, but this time I wanted to make sure we spent a night at the Maze Overlook. I also wanted to check out the Millard Campsite along the Green River since it seems like a pretty remote area of the park and I haven’t heard about too many people driving out to it.

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No Thoroughfare Canyon

Friday & Saturday, April 18-19, 2014

Since I have a three night backpacking trip coming up at the beginning of May and I never did get out on a backpacking trip last year, I wanted to get in a quick overnight trip this month. I have also wanted to camp in the backcountry of the Colorado National Monument and hike the full length of No Thoroughfare Canyon. I decided to take care of all three of these goals with an overnight backpacking trip through No Thoroughfare Canyon with my friend Jackson.

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Fruita Dugway

Sunday, April 13, 2014

My original plan for the day was to hike the Fruita Dugway trail first thing in the morning. I woke up early and was out the door well before the sun came up with hopes of catching a nice sunrise from the trail. I knew that rain was in the forecast for the day but I thought it might hold off for a few more hours after checking the forecast and weather maps before leaving my house. I was wrong. As I neared the trailhead just outside of Fruita the skies opened up and a very heavy rain began to fall, which was accompanied by strong winds and a little lightning. I would not be hiking anywhere local this morning, so I turned around and drove back home.

The Sandstone Bowl

Saturday, March 1, 2014

When Diane and I woke up Saturday morning we had no plans for the day. We wanted to do something outsite but the weather was calling for rain all day. In the end we decided to ignore the weather reports since it looked nice outside and took a last minute trip just over the stateline into Utah so I could check on a geocache that I had placed a few years back. It’s in a remote area that sees little traffic so very few people have actually found it. It had been a while since I had been out that way and I was looking forward to hiking around the area. After getting off the pavement onto the Yellow Cat Road we ran into some pretty muddy conditions that slowed down driving, but nothing too bad. After leaving the Yellow Cat Road we pretty much drove on sandy roads the rest of the day and didn’t have to deal with any more slippery mud. Although, a lot of the two-track roads we drove were filled with tumbleweeds, so we had to deal with those instead. It appears that we were the first vehicle on some of these roads this season. Even though there were storms all around us for most of the day we managed to miss most of the rain. It was a bit windy out all day, but the scattered clouds made for some excellent photography conditions with the changing light and shadows. My favorite kind of day!