wind // ADVENTR.co

Ouray Trails: Silvershield Trail & Oak Creek Trail

San Juan Triangle | Monday – Tuesday, June 23-24, 2025

I wasn’t able to get out hiking on Juneteenth last Thursday like I had hoped since I was trying to figure out what was going on with my Jeep most of last week, so to make up for it I decided to take a day off from work this week and head on down to Ouray to hike a few of the trails closer to town. The weather forecast for Tuesday was looking like the best conditions of the week, so I left after work on Monday and made my way down to Ouray. After a quick stop for dinner in Delta and gas in Montrose, I continued on to the parking lot at the Ouray Hot Springs Pool so I could hike the last segment of the Ouray Perimeter Trail that was not yet built when Diane and I hiked the loop over nine years ago. Although it was a bit warm in Ouray this evening, most of the trail that I hiked this evening was already in the shade and there was a nice breeze.

1 Comment

Fall Creek: An Overdue Return to the Uncompahgre

Uncompahgre Wilderness | Saturday, June 21, 2025

I can’t believe it’s been almost five years since I last set foot in the Uncompahgre Wilderness, especially since I have always considered it to be one of my favorite Wilderness areas that’s close to home and we used to come here frequently over past Labor Day weekends. I guess I’ve just been too busy concentrating on exploring other areas these past few years. Well, I wanted to change that this summer and get back, so I thought it would be a good idea to go on a short overnight backpacking trip with Diane along Fall Creek since our last visit to that drainage didn’t quite go as planned. Unfortunately, it turned out that we wouldn’t have much better luck this time around either!

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!

4 Comments

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.

From The Maze to The Mesa, Again…

Friday – Sunday, March 28-30, 2025

This weekend I met up with my friend Alan who was once again visiting the southwest from France for a couple of weeks this spring. Late last year while he was starting to plan out his trip we had made rough plans to hike together to a Barrier Canyon Style pictograph panel that is found in the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, so that’s where we ended up starting our weekend off when we met up at a campsite late on Friday afternoon. After our rough drive and hike to the pictographs on Saturday morning we then made our way over to Cedar Mesa so we could explore a few sites before I headed home early on Sunday as I needed to finish getting prepared for an upcoming river trip into the Grand Canyon. Since this trip was a little reminiscent of my previous week spent exploring The Maze and The Mesa in 2011, I thought I would borrow the title again. Here are a few photos from the weekend.

Tag: wind

Ouray Trails: Silvershield Trail & Oak Creek Trail

Fall Creek: An Overdue Return to the Uncompahgre

Desolation Canyon & Gray Canyon of the Green River

Gunnison Gorge: Red Rocks to Gunnison Forks

From The Maze to The Mesa, Again…