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Ridge Stock Driveway: Nellie Creek to El Paso Creek

Uncompahgre Wilderness & Fall Colors 2025 | Friday & Saturday, September 26-27, 2025

This weekend I headed up into the Uncompahgre Wilderness near Lake City so I could spend one final weekend hiking in the high country above treeline as my season in the mountains comes to an end. I’ve been wanting to hike more sections of the Ridge Stock Driveway Trail that traverses much of the wilderness from American Flats in the west to the Alpine Plateau in the east, and I thought it would be fun to hike a segment above Nellie Creek, Big Blue Creek and El Paso Creek, which all surround the base of Uncompahgre Peak– the highest point in the San Juan Mountains! I left from work on Friday afternoon, grabbed a bite to eat in Delta, and then took the Blue Mesa Cutoff over to the Lake Fork of the Gunnison which I followed upstream to Lake City. Although I was hoping to see some fall colors along the way this weekend, I was a bit surprised at just how nice the colors were all around Lake City. I don’t think I’ve ever headed this way in search of fall colors before since my typical go-to spots are around Ouray, Silverton and Crested Butte, but now I think I’m going to have to come back this way again in the future!

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Ring Around The Island: Fog in Wedding Canyon

Colorado National Monument | Sunday, September 14, 2025

This weekend Diane wanted to hike the Wedding Canyon Loop in the Colorado National Monument with me on Sunday morning since we might not be able to hike together again for a little while, so I planned to stay close to home so we could do that. Although I was originally planning to spend Saturday morning hiking in the mountains near Ouray, the weather forecast wasn’t looking good and I changed my mind after work on Friday and decided to just stay home and work on my 4Runner instead. This was probably the right call since there was a lot of rain, flash-flooding and even a few rare tornadoes in the Four Corners region and Western Colorado on Saturday! On Sunday morning we got up early, left home at dawn and started hiking from the Lower Monument Canyon Trailhead just before sunrise. To our surprise, as we crossed over the low divide between Monument Canyon and Wedding Canyon we found that the valley on the other side was filled with fog which made for some amazing and beautiful conditions as we hiked into Wedding Canyon.

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Fringes of the Raggeds: Yule Pass to Daisy Pass

Raggeds Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, September 5-7, 2025

This weekend I returned to the Elk Mountains near Crested Butte so I could hike up to two passes in the Ruby Range that have been on my to-do list for far too long, both of which are found along the fringes of the Raggeds Wilderness above the Slate River Valley. Even though I didn’t have the best experience trying to find a campsite near Crested Butte back in July, there are still a lot of places in the area that I want to hike and explore so I decided to give it another shot after Labor Day weekend, which seemed to work out much better this time. As usual, I left from work on Friday afternoon, stopped for a quick dinner in Delta and then took the Kebler Pass Road over into Crested Butte and followed the Slate River up to the Paradise Divide where I found a campsite for the night. It started to rain on and off while I was driving over Kebler Pass which would keep up throughout the rest of the evening. Once I was settled in at camp I spent the remainder of the evening wandering around Paradise Divide when it wasn’t raining.

Plateau of Fire: Yellowstone National Park

Tuesday – Saturday, August 19-23, 2025

Up until about a week ago Diane and I were planning to spend the latter part of this week backpacking in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, however some things came up that prevented us from going on a longer backpacking trip at this time, so we decided to change course and throw together a last minute trip to Yellowstone National Park instead. Neither of us had ever been to Yellowstone before and I’ve certainly always avoided the park because of the massive crowds it attracts, but I guess it was finally time to give the world’s first National Park a shot. So late last week I reserved a site at the Bridge Bay Campground for three nights and then came up with a rough itinerary that focused on visiting some of the areas around the lower Grand Loop Road, entering the park via Cody and the East Entrance and then leaving through the South Entrance into Jackson Hole. I had never even thought about planning a trip to Yellowstone before last week or been this far north in Wyoming before, and I had to consult a lot of maps and guidebooks to help me figure out the layout of the park rather quickly so our itinerary would make some sense.

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Telluride Trails: Sneffels Highline Trail & Mystic Falls

Friday & Saturday, August 15-16, 2025

Since Diane and I are leaving on Tuesday afternoon to spend the rest of the week up in Wyoming, I needed to be home on Sunday to get prepared for the upcoming trip. Still, I wanted to get out hiking in the mountains this weekend and decided to head on down to Telluride after work on Friday so I could hike the Sneffels Highline Trail on Saturday morning. It’s been quite a while since I last hiked in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness and I was looking forward to returning. Although it seems that the monsoon has been pretty nonexistent around here this season, according to the forecast it looked like stormy weather was going to back this weekend and I might have to work around some wet weather- I was just hoping it wouldn’t completely cancel my plans. As I drove down to Telluride on Friday afternoon I started to encounter some rain as I drove through San Miguel Canyon, but it had stopped by the time I reached Telluride and found a place to park in town.

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Tag: sunrise

Ridge Stock Driveway: Nellie Creek to El Paso Creek

Ring Around The Island: Fog in Wedding Canyon

Fringes of the Raggeds: Yule Pass to Daisy Pass

Plateau of Fire: Yellowstone National Park

Telluride Trails: Sneffels Highline Trail & Mystic Falls