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Junes Bottom & Moonshine Wash

Edges of the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, November 21-23, 2025

This weekend I didn’t want to stray too far from home but I also wanted to go somewhere where I knew the roads would be OK since we had a week full of wet stormy weather across the Colorado Plateau, so I decided to return to the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness for the third time this year since there are still a number of hikes I want to do in the area. My main objective was to hike down to Junes Bottom since it’s been on my to-do list for a long time and I have never had the opportunity to stop there while on a river trip through Labyrinth Canyon yet. I left from work on Friday afternoon, got fuel in Green River and then made my way south to the rim above the Trin-Alcove Bend which is where I planned to watch the sunset and then spend the night.

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Trappers Lake: Hiking in the ‘Cradle of Wilderness’

Flat Tops Wilderness | Friday – Sunday, July 18-20, 2025

This weekend I set out to finish what I had hoped to accomplish during the last weekend in June by heading up into the Flat Tops Wilderness to hike a few of the trails that surround Trappers Lake in this ‘Cradle of Wilderness.’ I had actually planned to go on this trip late last month but during the drive between Rifle and Meeker I had some issues with my Jeep and ended up having to return home, which not only ruined my weekend plans but was also the last straw with my Jeep and part of the reason I am now driving a 4Runner. This time I left after work on Friday and had no issues with the drive to Trappers Lake. Since all my hiking was planned around Trappers Lake and dispersed camping is not allowed in the immediate area, I grabbed an open campsite at the Himes Peak Campground which is right along the North Fork of the White River and only a few of the sites were occupied, which was nice. With my campsite secured for the weekend I continued down the road to the Scotts Lake Trailhead and hiked down to the shore of Trappers Lake.

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The Flat Tops: Mandall Lakes to Ptarmigan Flat Top

Independence Day | Thursday – Friday, July 4-5, 2024

This year Diane was off from work over the Forth of July and following weekend, but since she was having a friend from out of town visit over the weekend she had to be home by Friday afternoon. Still, we wanted to at least get out on a short backpacking trip and decided to go on an overnight hike up into the Mandall Lakes Basin at the eastern end of the Flat Tops Wilderness. We left from home early on Thursday morning and followed the Colorado River up and over to the headwaters of the Yampa River where we followed the Bear River to the trailhead located next to the Bear Lake Reservoir. After double-checking to make sure we had everything we needed, we shouldered our packs and started hiking up the Mandall Creek Trail just after 10:00am.

The Flat Tops: Marvine Trail to the Marvine Lakes

Flat Tops Wilderness | Saturday & Sunday, July 1-2, 2023

Now that Diane is finally finished with school and will hopefully be joining me on more of my weekend trips going forward, we planned to go backpacking into The Flat Tops together over this extended holiday weekend. Although we had originally set out to go on a loop through the Flat Tops Wilderness, for various reasons we ended up altering our plans and only doing an overnight trip up to the Marvine Lakes this time. In hindsight, that’s probably all we should have planned to do in the first place for our first backpacking trip back into the mountains. We left home early on Saturday morning, made our way over to Meeker and then followed the Flat Tops Trail along the White River to the Marvine Trailhead where we shouldered our packs and started hiking up the Marvine Trail.

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Buck Canyon: Rambling Around Robbers Roost V

East Fork of Buck Canyon | Friday & Saturday, April 28-29, 2023

This weekend I needed to spend some time on Sunday preparing for an upcoming River Trip, so I decided to stay closer to home and do a little more hiking in the Robbers Roost area on Saturday morning. After visiting the mouth of Buck Canyon during our short float on the Dirty Devil River two weeks ago, I thought it might be nice to hike into the canyon from above and visit two large arches that are found there. I left from work on Friday afternoon, topped off my gas tank in Green River and then drove across the San Rafael Desert to the edge of Buck Canyon on some sandy backroads that I had never driven before.

Tag: the flat tops

Junes Bottom & Moonshine Wash

Trappers Lake: Hiking in the ‘Cradle of Wilderness’

The Flat Tops: Mandall Lakes to Ptarmigan Flat Top

The Flat Tops: Marvine Trail to the Marvine Lakes

Buck Canyon: Rambling Around Robbers Roost V