IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

It was a great morning for a hike. I wanted to get out of the house for a little while this morning and try out my new Merrell Snowmotion boots. When we were at the Colorado National Monument last Sunday, I remembered noticing that the Alcove Nature Trail near the Visitor’s Center was covered with snow and no one had been on it yet. Since I have never hiked that short trail yet, I figured it would be a good place to test them out.

Tracks in the snow

My new boots performed great

Dead end in the alcove at the end of the trail

Self portrait

I was a good way to start the day. I’m hoping to get out tomorrow and get a little snowshoeing in 😉

Since I was home all day yesterday, I needed to get outside for at least a little while today. We headed to the Colorado National Monument and hiked the Canyon Rim and Window Rock trails near the visitor’s center. Here’s a few pictures Amanda and I took along the way.

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Sunday, December 6, 2009

Today Amanda and I headed out to hike the popular Serpent’s Trail within the Colorado National Monument. The original vehicle entrance to the Monument, this route was once called the “Crookedest Road in the World” and is now on the National Register of Historic Structures.

According to my GPS, the trail was just under 2 miles one way and there were about 14 switch-backs. From the parking area at the bottom of the trail, it climbed steadily all the way to the top with an elevation gain of about 830 feet. Coming back down was much easier for us 🙂 Here’s a little more info on the trail:

Constructed between 1912 and 1921, Serpents Trail provided the only automobile access to Colorado National Monument until 1937 when the Fruita Canyon portion of Rim Rock Drive opened. Serpents Trail reflects engineering techniques used in the construction of early automobile roads in difficult terrain and was specifically designed to optimize the scenery of the park. John Otto, the original booster of the park’s scenic wonders and the custodian of Colorado National Monument from 1911 to 1927, designed the original route and was involved in its sporadic construction. The project also provided access to the Glade Park region, and local engineers and citizens contributed to its construction and funding.

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

This past weekend Amanda and I headed south for our annual November Cedar Mesa weekend trip. We left right after work on Friday and made our way to Blanding where we had some hotel reservations for the weekend (we’re not into cold weather camping).

Saturday morning we headed to our first destination of the weekend: The Citadel. I have wanted to check out these ruins for a while, and am glad we finally did. This was a fun hike with some minor scrambling required to reach the ruins.

After taking the short spur trail from the Cigarette Springs Road, we reached the rim of Road Canyon.

View over Road Canyon

After hiking along the rim of Road Canyon for about a mile and a half, we soon got our first view of the peninsula that the ruins are located on.

From this point we had to make our way down some steeper slickrock to reach the peninsula.

Amanda headed down

About to make our way across

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After exploring in my Jeep today, I took a short hike up Courthouse Wash. I didn’t feel like pulling my DSLR out of my backpack, so I only took a few pictures with my iPhone.