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Tag: roan cliffs

Five Years Later: Nine Mile Canyon 2023

Saturday & Sunday, December 9-10, 2023

Diane hasn’t been able to join me on a weekend trip for a little while now, so when she got her schedule a few months back and saw that she had this weekend off we made plans to spend some time in one of our favorite places that for some reason we had not been back to in quite a while. It’s hard for me to believe, but it’s been over five years (has it really been that long!?) since the last time Diane and I spent any time exploring Nine Mile Canyon together and we were definitely overdue for a return visit! We left home early on Saturday morning, drove to Wellington and then spent the remainder of the weekend searching for Rock Art in and around the canyon. We revisited some sites we have been to before, but we also found plenty of new stuff along the way, too. Here are some photos of what we saw this weekend…

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High Mesas and Plateaus of Western Colorado

Flat Top Mountain, Blair Mountain and the Roan Plateau
Friday – Sunday, June 24-26, 2022

This weekend I planned to spend my time hiking and driving to a couple highpoints of the high mesas and plateaus of Western Colorado, starting with a hike I’ve been looking forward to for a while into the Flat Tops Wilderness on Saturday morning. I left after work on Friday afternoon, grabbed a quick dinner in Glenwood Springs and then followed the Colorado River to Dotsero and McCoy and then took Highway 131 north to Yampa. There were storms in the area this afternoon and I was a little worried that Glenwood Canyon might get closed by Flash Flood Warnings, which has been common lately, but thankfully that did not happen. Once I reached Yampa I started following the Bear River on my way to the Stillwater Reservoir, and turned off to take a side road up to Gardner Park to find a spot to camp for the night. I watched the sunset from the edge of the Gardner Park Reservoir and then went to bed early so I could get an early start on Saturday.

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Canyons of the Black Ridge: Perseverance Arch

Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness: West Fork of Jones Canyon
Saturday, April 18, 2020

Hiking to Perseverance Arch in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness area has been on my to-do list for a long time. I’ve always thought that I would do it as an overnight backpacking trip since it’s a pretty long hike, which is part of the reason why I kept putting it off. Now that I’ve been having to stay closer to home during the quarantine, I’ve been going through my list of local hikes that I never made time for in the past, and I decided that it was finally time for me to visit Perseverance Arch and cross it off my list! I figured that this long and remote hike would offer me plenty of solitude near home on a Saturday when it seems like more people than ever are getting outdoors in the area. I left home well before sunrise on Saturday morning and drove up to the trailhead in Glade Park so I could get an early start.

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Return to Range Creek Canyon

Friday – Sunday, November 15-17, 2019

I’ve wanted to return to Range Creek ever since my first visit at the end of the season in 2013, and since Diane had never been there before we decided that it was finally time to head back this year. So back in August I secured a pair of permits for this Saturday and hoped that the weather would cooperate and not close the road into the canyon before our visit. We left after work on Friday and drove to the north entrance gate of the property in Range Creek Canyon where we set up camp so we would be able to get started hiking early in the morning. After a good night of sleep we woke up on Saturday morning to a brisk 29 degree temperature and clear blue sky above. Although it was a bit cold in the morning the temperature would warm up nicely during the day and it was very pleasant hiking weather.

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Corcoran Peak

Friday & Sunday, September 15 & 17, 2017

After hiking to the summit of Corcoran Point from the Tellerico Trail in the Book Cliffs two years ago, I got a nice view of Corcoran Peak (8,076) and thought it would be a good peak close to home to try climbing another time. Since we were staying around home this weekend to go to a concert on Saturday, I thought it would be a good idea to head out to the Little Book Cliffs after work on Friday, catch the sunset, spend the night and then climb Corcoran Peak on Saturday morning before going to the concert. The plan was going well until after sunset when it started to rain pretty heavily. This is not an area you want to be in when the roads get wet, so I ended up heading home instead of camping and then returning late Sunday morning to try the climb again.

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