Turkey Weekend - Palisade, Colorado

We went to Palisade, CO near Grand Junction for Thanksgiving with Jamie and Cal.

It was awesome. We may have a new Moab.

Rabbit Valley - peaceful on a Thanksgiving evening - likely roaring with ATVs at other times

We brought bikes as the primary means of fun - but it ended up snowing for half of the trip and turning the trails into a muddy mess.

The Farmhouse that we rented on VRBO was incredible. Cheap, cozy, spacious and accommodating. It was located in Palisade and was close to all of the orchards, 20+ vineyards, distillery, brewery, and cider house.

The Ribbon Trail - high above Grand Junction

Our favorite winery:

https://www.canyonwindcellars.com/

It snowed on us Friday night and cancelled our biking plans - so we spent time hiking in the Colorado National Monument. We still managed one bike ride along the road of orchards and vineyards above the Colorado River.

Monument Overlook

The farmhouse had a fantastic literature and music collection. Jamie and Cal cooked incredible dinners and we were able to relax after dark in the comfort of a warm house instead of a frigid tent.

I am going to post the VRBO - to help convince friends and family that we should return soon.

https://www.vrbo.com/476583

Pinyons in the snow - entrance to Monument Canyon

Headed up Monument Canyon

Beautiful Monument Canyon Sunrise

La Verkin Creek Backpack

It's that time of year again - when Dani gets 3 days off work! and we go to Zion.

We are going to throw these pictures in non-sequitur fashion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1udRGMJI8w&feature=youtu.be

North Guardian Angel (below)

Our original plan was to backpack the South Fork of the Virgin River - AKA "The Barracks".
However, rain was in the forecast - so we snagged backcountry campsite # 13 near La Verkin Creek in the Kolob area of the park.

Hammock Time!

Campsite #13 is the second to last on the La Verkin creek trail. We spent two nights here with Katie and Tyler.

When it rained we played cards in our make shift shelter, but the rain never really came like the weather people said - so we were graced with showers and sunshine.

We saw some Tarantulas and another insect called the "Jerusalem Cricket" - which is absolutely terrifying. Unfortunately - I can't find the photos of the cricket - so I snagged one from the interweb.

La Verkin Creek (below)

Oh Yeah! before we started our backpack we spent 1.5 days in the Kolob Terrace area of the park camped at Lava Point - and explored the North Gate peaks area.

Storm blowing in on Northgate Peak East.

Dusk near Northgate Peaks TH.

Forward in time back to La Verkin creek. We explored the upper headwaters of La Verkin and Willis Creek.

Waterfall - as far as we could go up Willis Creek.

Willis - La Verkin confluence (above)

Triple Traverse

 In September - Cole asked me to attempt the WURL - Wasatch Ultimate Ridge Linkup

http://jasondorais.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-wurl.html

Cole in Stairs Gulch during a WURL preparation scramble

I did not want to do the WURL for the obvious reasons- but settled on a compromise. We would instead turn the ~25 miles of ridge hiking into a 2-day adventure broken up by a stay at one of Snowbird's lodges. We would also cut out the section of ridge from Cardiff Pass to the Tram. We would call this the WSWURL "Weak Sauce WURL". Needless to say we completed about 30% of the WSWURL - and have a long way to go to complete the WURL in its entirety.

Cole - Twin Peaks looking into LCC

To get myself ready - I started doing non-sensical things - like running at Liberty Park in the dark before work, a 5k followed by a day of DH biking, scrambling rock faces, climbing mountains. I even bought a pair of shoes that were billed for walking around on rocks!

Me - Twin Peaks with the city in the background

 Needless to say - I left a lot of good fall biking on the table.

We made it up Twin Peaks quickly and were moving fast towards Sunrise. All the training was paying off. However, it was not the fitness that ultimately had me worried - it was the scrambling.

Sunrise Peak

 There were two sections of the BCC ridge that had me concerned. The first was the section heading up Sunrise and the next was Monte Cristo. This concern was the reason I sought out several rock scrambling adventures prior.

Pano

However, what ultimately got me was the extended section of ridge line from the top of Tanner's slide path to the Little Pine Couloir. This section was slightly downhill for a sustained distance and knife edge. The fact that we spent much of this section not going up made it very difficult.

Tanner's Slide Path to LCC road

I was mentally exhausted when we reached the Little Pine Couloir -  and not feeling up for an attempt on the Monte Cristo section. We decided to bail towards BCC and Lake Blanche.

Time to bail

 Once I get a chance to do the Monte Cristo section I can confirm, but bailing was likely more difficult than continuing. ~3 hours later we made it down several cliff bands to Lake Blanche.

Somewhere above Lake Blanche

Lake Blanche is awesome.