IntrepidXJ's Adventure Weblog

Amazon.com has been good to me this week…..as I got a few more books today….and since I didn;t end up having to work today, I finished one, too.

Here’s what I got. These books should help me research for future trips

Sandstone Spine: Seeking the Anasazi on the First Traverse of the Comb Ridge

In Search of the Old Ones

Jeep Trails to Colorado Ghost Towns

A Guide to Southern Utah’s Hole-in-the-Rock Trail (This is the book I already read, so stay tuned for a review of it in the near future)

Jared just got his Arch Canyon pictures online from Saturday. Here’s a few of them.

More can be found in his gallery here.

Just thought I would share that I got yet another new book (still have a few more on the way). Guess I’ll be reading a lot now

This book is about the Uncompahgre Plateau between Grand Junction and Ridgway, Colorado. I went over this plateau last year on my trip across Colorado and wanted to start doing some more exploring up there again. This book covers a lot of the history of the plateau, plus the names of geographic features and where to find everything. I can’t wait to get started reading this book and then finding these places myself

Amanda wanted to head back up to try and find the Mica Mine that we couldn’t find on Monday. Lucky for us, we did find it today. We had taken a wrong turn on Monday which led us up and out of the canyon.

After finding the mine and exploring it a bit, we continued on to the end of the trail where we found a cool waterfall.

Here’s some pictures from our hike.

We got to use our new Kelty Grand Mesa 4 tent this weekend for the first time, and both Amanda and I agree, that we made a good decision with this tent.

We did not have a chance to test setting it up before leaving on our trip this weekend, so our very first time setting it up was at Comb Wash campground in the dark. Even with the darkness, we managed to get the tent setup in approximately 5 minutes. We were looking for a tent that was easy to setup, and I think we found it.

Also, it poured on us all night the first night we were there, and the tent did an excellent job of keeping us dry. There was plenty of room for the both of us with some of our gear inside, and entering/exiting the tent is very easy with the large door opening on the front.

After Amanda got out of work today, we decided to head out for an evening hike to Mica Mine, which is located near Bangs Canyon. It wasn’t a long hike, but it was a nice one. I wasn’t expecting the creek to have any water in it, but it was flowing pretty good.

We found the tailings pile for Mica Mine, but were unable to find the actual mine. We searched and climbed a little, but had to head home. We plan on going back in the near future to search some more. Plus, we have read that there might be a waterfall further up the canyon we want to check out.

Here’s a few pictures from the hike.

A few more pictures can be found here.

Went out and did a little local exploring for a few hours today. I headed up through Fruita and into Coal Gulch and took that up onto Ross Ridge. I initially passed the turnoff for Coal Gulch and had to turn around, but I did find a side trail I am going to have to research and head back to checkout.

After finding the right road, I started heading up into the Book Cliffs. The trail started out easy and got rougher the higher you climbed. There are also a number of side trails along this route that I will have to get back to.

Once I made it to Ross Ridge, the trail got very rough, steep and narrow. The trail eventually dead-ends at a nice overlook of Grand Valley. Here’s a few pictures from my adventure.

One of the side trails I will have to get back to

Climbing out of Coal Gulch

Book Cliffs

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Unfortunately since Amanda has to work on the holiday, we only had a normal weekend to go exploring, but we managed to make the most of it.

After heading out after work and driving straight through to Blanding, where we filled up with gas, we made it to Comb Wash campground and managed to setup camp right before it started raining. We knew there might be a chance of rain, but it actually ended up raining all night….and pretty hard, too.

After getting some sleep (not a good nights sleep) we got up early and headed over to the Arch Canyon trailhead where we met up with Jared (XJblue) and his friend Kyle. When we headed up the trail, we were greeted with a few pretty deep water crossings, thanks to all the rain we got during the night.

We stopped at the Arch Canyon Ruin for a few pictures before continuing on.

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I just pre-ordered my copy of the new Backcountry Adventures Colorado book. It’s expected to be released on June 15. The other Backcountry Adventures books I own (Utah and the old Colorado book) have been very useful for me planning my trips, and I look forward to the new version for Colorado

This version nearly doubles them amount of trails contained in the first book (143 to be exact), and comes with a new hard cover. These books have always contained a lot of history about the trails, besides just how to get to them. This book should come in very handy for me ths year. You can be sure that once I receive my copy, I will give it a review here on my website…so stay tuned.

Link to book on Amazon.com

After our last trip to Moab, the old Eddie Bauer tent I have started to really fall apart. I actually bought that tent for my first trip to Moab in 2003, so I guess it’s only fitting that it had it’s demise there as well.

After looking at some tents at the local outdoors stores, we ended up purchasing a Kelty Grand Mesa 4 tent from Amazon.com. It just arrived today, just in time to use this weekend on our trip to the Cedar Mesa area in South Eastern Utah. I should have a review of the tent when I get back