IntrepidXJ's Adventure Blog

This morning Amanda and I set off to do some hiking at the Colorado National Monument. Our first destination was the Liberty Cap trail. This is a trail we had not been on before. We started at the bottom and planned to head up to the Liberty Cap before heading back down, however after climbing about 500 feet on the trail, the ice and mud got too slick, so we ended up turning around.

Since we didn’t complete that trail, we decided to head over and check out Echo Canyon, since we haven’t been back there for a while.

View up No Thoroughfare Canyon

This way to Echo Canyon

We hiked about halfway6 up Echo Canyon until we stopped at a slickrock area that had water running through it and a few small waterfalls. We just sat down and relaxed here and listened to the running water. It was very relaxing.

My shadow over a pothole full of water

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February 15, 2010

My goal for President’s Day was to head out to Moab and to find some geocaches. However, there was more snow and ice around Moab than I had hoped for, which killed that idea, as I was not about to go digging in ice and snow looking for geocaches. I had started out on the Cotter Mine Road hoping to find some caches near the Monitor & Merrimac Buttes, but when I reached the turnoff, I quickly found out that it had not been traveled.

Along the Cotter Mine Road

Instead of breaking through the icy snow, I decided to loop around back to the highway and head to Arches National Park. When I arrived at the park, I made my way towards The Organ, where I parked my Jeep and started hiking up the Park Avenue trail.

Three Gossips and Baby Arch

Three Gossips

The Organ

Park Avenue

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February 13 – 14, 2010

For the weekend following my birthday, I wanted to head back to Capitol Reef National Park. When I was there back in October, I noted a couple of hikes I wanted to check out and figured this would be a good time.

After driving through some thick fog early Saturday morning, we arrived at Capitol Reef and started on our first short hike up to Hickman Bridge.

After climbing above the Fremont River looking back at Capitol Dome with the road below.

Hickman Bridge

On our way back from the Hickman Bridge, we stopped at the Nels Johnson Bridge

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Here’s a few iPhone pictures from our quick trip to the Colorado National Monument today. It was pretty foggy up there 🙂

Heading to Arches National Park on the weekend closest to Christmas seems to be a tradition that Amanda and I are starting. Hopefully we can keep it up in the future 😉

On Sunday, we got up early and made our way to Arches. The sun started to rise as we neared the park, and it appeared that it was going to be a nice clear day. Unfortunately, by the time we reached Devils Garden, the clouds had rolled in. We quickly made the hike to Landscape Arch and took a few photos.

We had wanted to head over to Double O Arch, but with about a foot of snow on the ground in the park, the trail was very slick and difficult. Since I didn’t want to fall and break my camera gear, I decided it would be best if we headed back when the snow melts off. Instead we headed back to Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch before heading back to our car.

The sky did get a little more interesting on our way back

Tunnel Arch

Near Pine Tree Arch

Sky through Pine Tree Arch

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