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Tag: uncompahgre plateau

Monument CanyonMonument Canyon

Monument Canyon

Sunday, September 15, 2013

On Thursday evening my friend Lisa contacted me to let me know she was taking a last minute trip to the Colorado National Monument this weekend and she wanted to see if I was available to go hiking on Sunday morning. It just so happened that I planned to be home all this weekend and was planning on hiking around the Monument already. We planned to meet up on Sunday morning and hike Monument Canyon from top to bottom. It has been a few years since I hiked the full canyon and I was looking forward to it. We met at the lower trailhead at 8:00am, left her car there and then took my Jeep up to the upper trailhead.

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The IslandThe Island

The Island

Saturday, September 14, 2013

I’ve seen The Island sticking up between Wedding Canyon and Monument Canyon for many years while photographing the Colorado National Monument from the overlooks along Rim Rock Drive. You can see The Island across the canyon in the photo below taken earlier this year from Grand View. For a long time I’ve wanted to hike up there but never seemed to get around to it. I decided to change that this weekend.

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Pollock BenchPollock Bench

Pollock Bench

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Since the weather was bad all over the Colorado Plateau on Saturday I decided to stick around home this weekend. I did manage to get outside on Sunday after the weather cleared up for a hike on the Pollock Bench trail to the Window Rock Tower. This is the main trail that leads to the Rattlesnake Canyon arches, if you don’t have a high clearance vehicle to reach the upper trailhead. Since I have always visited the arches from the upper trailhead, I thought it would be nice to check out this alternate route that I have always bypassed. I also wanted to check out the Window Rock Tower, which is where I turned around on this hike.

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Colorado National Monument InversionMonument Inversion

Colorado National Monument Inversion

Saturday, January 26, 2013

On Saturday morning I slept in a little later than usual. A winter storm moved into the area overnight and when I looked outside towards the Colorado National Monument I could see that the humidity from the storm caused the inversion layer over the valley to thicken. I quickly got dressed and drove up to the Monument. I was planning on a short trip up there to hopefully get a couple of decent photos, but I ended up spending over 5 hours up there!

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