Trip Reports from the West End and Uncompahgre Plateau including the Dominguez-Escalante and McInnis Canyons National Conservation Areas.
Trip Reports from the Colorado National Monument can be found here: Colorado National Monument Trip Reports
Lost in the West End | Friday – Sunday, May 22-24, 2026
After finally taking the time to drive the entire Rimrocker Trail back in 2024 I’ve wanted to return to the West End so I could explore more of the many old mining roads that are found around the Paradox Valley. I figured that the Memorial Day weekend would be a good time to finally do this trip since I was pretty sure this part of the Colorado Plateau would be considerably less busy than some of the more popular areas in the mountains. With temperatures warming up in ...
Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area | Friday – Saturday, April 24-25, 2026
Since we just drove home from Arizona this past weekend and I’ll be leaving for Las Vegas early on Thursday morning, I thought it would be a good idea to stay closer to home this weekend and hike a few more sections of the trails found within the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area, especially since my last trip to the Gunnison Gorge was cut short earlier in the month when I was still battling a bad cold. The weather was calling for rain to begin overnight on Saturday ...
Fruita Frontcountry | Wednesday, October 29, 2025
I was originally hoping to leave after work today and head over into the Canyons of the Escalante for four days to try and salvage part of my annual Southern Utah Wanderings trip that I missed earlier in the month, but Diane was still having some possible concerning issues with her recovery and I thought it would be best to stay close to home for now. Instead, I ended up going on a hike after work on a few different segments of trails surrounding Al Look Hill within the McInnis Canyons National Conservation ...
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Well, this weekend certainly didn’t go as planned. I was supposed to spend the weekend hiking and camping in the La Sal Mountains with my friend Jackson and his family, but after driving up into Beaver Basin on Saturday afternoon I started to have issues with my Jeep that made us reconsider those plans and turn around to head back home instead. Thankfully, before meeting up with Jackson I had gone on a short hike up the Wildcat Trail in Unaweep Canyon- so the entire weekend wasn’t a complete waste. Since I wasn’t going to be ...
Caddis Flats to Beaver Creek & Deep Creek to Down Valley Park | Average CFS: 675
Saturday & Sunday, June 7-8, 2025
Late last year Jackson and I decided to take advantage of Mild To Wild’s annual Black Friday sale and booked a trip on the upper San Miguel River for this Sunday with hopes that there would be enough water to run it. Luckily, even though the San Juan Mountains had a pretty poor snow year this winter, there was still enough water to raft the San Miguel at this time, so we planned to head down on Saturday ...
After Work Adventures | Tuesday, June 3, 2025
This afternoon I returned to the Kokopelli Trails right after work since I hadn’t been back to this area since March of last year and there are only a few short trail segments remaining that I haven’t hiked yet. This time I was going to hike Steve’s Loop because the west end of the loop has been rerouted sometime since my last hike on the trail back in 2016, plus I had never hiked the connector trail from Steve’s to Mary’s Loop. Thankfully it wasn’t quite as warm out today as it ...
Canyons of the Black Ridge Wilderness | Wednesday, May 7, 2025
While hiking over the Pollock Bench on my way to the West Fork of Pollock Canyon on Sunday morning I noticed a well-used trail below the rim on the west side of Flume Creek Canyon that I had never hiked before and which wasn’t on any of the maps I looked at. After waiting out some wet weather over the past two days I decided to return after work this afternoon so I could check this trail out. I left from the Pollock Bench Trailhead and followed the trail ...
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 ...
After Work Adventures | Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Now that Daylight Savings Time is officially here and it’s staying lighter longer after work I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage and get outside for a hike this afternoon. I decided to head on over to the frontcountry trails found at the mouth of Devils Canyon in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area near Fruita to hike the Devils Ridge Trail (D7) which I had tried to hike back in August of last year but was turned around by muddy conditions. It turned out to be a ...
After Work Adventures | Friday, August 23, 2024
Since I was actually home on a Friday evening, I made a last-minute decision to go on a local hike in the Devils Canyon section of the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area near Fruita. Although I had finished hiking all the trails in this section of the frontcountry back in 2016, I had recently looked at an updated map and noticed a new trail called Devils Ridge (D7) that wasn’t there back then, so I thought I’d go check it out as part of a short loop hike. Even though the weather ...
