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Desolation Canyon & Gray Canyon of the Green River

Splitting the Tavaputs Plateau in Two: Sand Wash to Swaseys Beach
Sunday – Saturday, May 11-17, 2025 | Average CFS: 6,665

After getting permits for Yampa Canyon and the Canyon of Lodore over the past two years, Jackson’s and my main goal for this year was to try and get a Spring Low-Use Season permit for the Green River through Desolation Canyon and Gray Canyon as we continue to work our way through more sections of the Colorado River and Green River across the Colorado Plateau. Although Jackson and I have still have never actually won a permit in any of the lotteries we have entered over the years we have been lucky enough to grab permits and cancellations during the general releases after the fact, and this time I managed to get us a permit for Desolation Canyon back in mid-March. Once we had the permit we quickly got started on the planning process since the launch date was only about two months away, but we quickly found out that many of our usual river friends were unable to make the trip this spring. Luckily, our friends Bob and Lisa were able to go and they had a few other friends that they were able to invite on the trip with us, two of whom were very familiar with Desolation Canyon and were a great addition to the trip! In the end I enjoyed rafting with everyone who was on this trip and would invite every single one of them back in a heartbeat!

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Gore Trail Loop & West Fork of Pollock Canyon

Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, May 2-4, 2025

Since I have another week-long river trip coming up very soon that I need to start getting ready for, I stayed local this weekend and decided to go on a pair of backcountry hikes that are located within the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness. These are two hikes that I’ve been thinking about doing for a number of years at this point, but I have never made them a priority to get around to before and figured it was finally time to give them a go! The first hike I wanted to try follows an old 4×4 road that shows up on some maps as the Gore Trail and encircles a mesa located between the heads of Knowles Canyon and Jones Canyon. It looked like this loop was going to be around 16 miles in length, which includes a couple miles on BS Road to close the loop, and since I wanted to get an early start on Saturday morning I headed up to Glade Park later on Friday afternoon and spent the night on the edge of Sieber Canyon.

Gunnison Gorge: Red Rocks to Gunnison Forks

Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area | Friday – Sunday, April 25-27, 2025

After going on a last minute trip into the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness in Utah last weekend, I wanted to stay even closer to home this weekend and thought that this would be a good opportunity for me to return to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Although as of last June I have hiked all of the official trails within Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, there are still quite a few trails and roads in the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area that I have not hiked or driven yet, so I figured I could check out a few more of them as I continue to explore the area more thoroughly. I left from work on Friday afternoon and made my way down to the Gunnison Gorge.

Keg Point and the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness

Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, April 18-20, 2025

After spending last week in Arizona and then driving up to Salt Lake City in the middle of this past week to attend a concert on Wednesday evening I had fully intended to take this weekend off to stay home and relax for the first time this year, but Diane was going to be working nights this weekend and she wanted me out of the house so she could get some rest in between shifts. I quickly threw together a last minute itinerary and left after work on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend exploring the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness on the west side of the Green River where I could go on some hikes that I’ve wanted to do for a long time but have kept putting off. I was hoping this area wouldn’t be too busy over the Easter holiday weekend and thankfully that turned out to be a good bet!

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O’Leary Lookout in the San Francisco Volcanic Field

Friday, April 11, 2025

After spending an easy day around Flagstaff on Thursday, we still had one more day to wait until our Crack-In-Rock Pueblo hike which was scheduled for Saturday and I was wanting to go on a longer hike early this morning to help pass the time. Last October while Diane and I were hiking the trails in Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument I had noticed a road switchbacking up O’Leary Peak to a fire lookout tower on top and thought to myself that I should hike up there the next time I am in the area and have a little extra time, so that’s what I decided to do this morning before it started getting too warm out. Diane wasn’t interested in hiking another 2,000 feet of elevation today, so she stayed back at the hotel while I headed out to visit the fire lookout on the summit of O’Leary Peak.

Tag: sunrise

Desolation Canyon & Gray Canyon of the Green River

Gore Trail Loop & West Fork of Pollock Canyon

Gunnison Gorge: Red Rocks to Gunnison Forks

Keg Point and the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness

O’Leary Lookout in the San Francisco Volcanic Field