Canyons of the Black Ridge: Trailing the Ghosts and Gnomes of Goblin Gulch
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
When Will Minor started to hunt for a small band of strayed Angora goats he little dreamed he soon would have cause to forget them. As he entered a tiny canyon he suddenly came face to face with the weirdest collection of natural forms he ever had seen. The soft white sandstone of the canyon walls was covered with faces and figures—some animal, some human, some resembling modernistic sculpture and others like nightmarish creatures which only a writer of horror fiction could conceive.
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Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
The ledge varies in width, 10 to 20 feet at the wider places, less than 30 inches at the narrowest. Yet this precarious shelf is a well-traveled road… Over the High Trail, great bands of sheep, herds of white-faced cattle, packers and camp movers, with their strings of loaded pack horses, pass on their migrations between the Black Ridge country and the lowlands along the Colorado River.
-Will C. Minor
This evening after work I headed back into the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness in search of a historic route ...
Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | 1,000th Trip Report
Saturday & Sunday, April 25-26, 2020
Before I get started, I just wanted to note that this Trip Report marks an important milestone in the history of ADVENTR.co. This is the 1,000th Trip Report that I have posted to this blog! As much as I would have loved to have gone somewhere further from home for this special occasion, it is what it is, and with the current restrictions in place for the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to stay close to home this time. When this year began, I had ...
Between the Forks of Pollock Canyon
Thursday, April 23, 2020
If the current COVID-19 pandemic had not completely changed everyone’s lives these past few weeks, then Diane and I would have left right after work today for another three day backpacking trip into The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. But since that is obviously not happening anymore, I decided instead to head out after work on another local adventure so that I could finally visit The Windows of Pollock Canyon in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness. This is another one of those hikes that has been on my to-do ...
Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness: West Fork of Jones Canyon
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Hiking to Perseverance Arch in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness area has been on my to-do list for a long time. I’ve always thought that I would do it as an overnight backpacking trip since it’s a pretty long hike, which is part of the reason why I kept putting it off. Now that I’ve been having to stay closer to home during the quarantine, I’ve been going through my list of local hikes that I never made time for in the past, and I decided that ...
Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Ever since Diane and I spent a nice weekend exploring the upper reaches of Knowles Canyon within the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness area a couple of years ago, I have wanted to get back to explore the lower parts of the canyon. Now that I am stuck staying closer to home for the time being, I thought this would be a great time to finally get there to check it out, especially since I figured it would be a good place to practice social distancing, too!
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Saturday, April 15, 2017
With all the traveling we’ve been doing lately, we decided to stay closer to home today and went on a moderate hike in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area. We hadn’t been back out this way since our overnight trip into Knowles Canyon last October so it was nice to get back. We had never been out around Jones Canyon before and thought that hiking the Jones Canyon Overlook Trail would be a nice introduction to the area since I hope to do more exploring out this way later in the year.
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New Year’s Eve | Saturday, December 31, 2016
Diane and I headed out to the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area early this morning for our final hike of 2016. We started our hike from the Rattlesnake Canyon Trailhead near Fruita and hiked up to the top of the Pollock Bench before dropping down a steep trail into Upper Pollock Canyon so we could visit Liberty Bell Arch (Pollock Arch). After checking out the arch from a few different vantage points we decided to continue down Pollock Canyon instead of returning the way had come to create a ten mile loop ...
Saturday & Sunday, October 29-30, 2016
After taking last weekend off to stay home and relax a little, this weekend Diane and I headed deep into the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness on an overnight backpacking trip into Knowles Canyon. We were in search of a few rock art sites thought to be hidden in the canyon, but unfortunately we would come up empty handed locating any of those on this trip. Instead, we would find a beautiful canyon with plenty of solitude only 20 miles from home. It’s nice to know that this kind of solitude can easily be found ...
Friday – Sunday, August 19-21, 2016
After spending a few days on the San Juan River for the past few years it was beginning to look like I wouldn’t be getting on the river at all this year after some possible plans had fallen through. I really wanted to get at least one river trip in this year, so a couple of month ago Jackson and I planned a weekend trip with our friend Chris on the Colorado River through Ruby and Horsethief Canyons since it’s a great float and very close to home.
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