My wife and I went for a 13.5 mile overnight hike through Dominguez Canyon outside of Grand Junction Co plus an additional 4.5 hour oops we went the wrong way hike. I took my SixMoons Designs 2 person tarp tent for this trip because we don't have a hammock for Bether and she wanted to sleep together. Kind of hard to do in a Hammock.
The through hike of this canyon requires a shuttle car so we dropped of the Subaru at Bridgport trail head Saturday morning at 630am. We set out in my truck for the Dominguez Canyon Campground. We ended up making a wrong turn in the morning and going for and additional 4.5 hour side hike. It is important when looking at a map even if you are experienced in the outdoors to not make the landmarks into something they are not, trust you gut when you notice, we aren't supposed to be going up hill. We were at no time lost because I knew where my truck was and how to get back to it. My moral here is to trust my gut because it was srceaming you aren't where you think you are. My gut was correct and it was correct in the direction I needed to go to be in the propper area.
This left us starting at the top of Dominguez Canyon at 2:30. We hiked till 6:45 set up camp exhausted. I have to say I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new TI-TRI with inferno insert from trail designs. I ordered it Thursday before last and it arrived on Friday just in time to put it in my pack for this trip. I have to say there is something spectacular about having the extra fuel to take a hot water towel bath and having warm water to wash up with when in the back country. I did not take the alcohol stove and only brought the 3 esbit blocks as a back up in case the inferno wood burner was faulty. The ash left from the stove was completely burned and easy to disperse. There was very little scorching of the ground and even though we were burning wood that normally sparks and pops I was never worried about a hot ember fly out starting a forest fire because it all seemed to be contained. The only downside I could see was more a product of wood choice than anything to do with the stove. If you use wood with lots of sap it will put more soot on you pot. Some wet sand and elbow grease will fix it though.
The next morning we had a slow start and did not start hiking again till 920. The Second day has all the fun stuff there are a ton of petroglyphs. A mine where the home is carved out of a red sandstone rock and when I droped a rock down the mineshaft I counted till 4 before it hit the bottom. There is a stream with multiple small waterfalls ans swimming holes at the bottom of a deep red rock desert canyon. Be sure to take your sunscreen or long sleeved shirt with a wide brimmed hat if you ever plan this hike. Although we did not see the desert bighorn sheep on this trip, we have seen as many as 16 with 2 kids. We were out of the canyon by 3:30 pm and had our other car out by 540. Because of the additional hike Beth and I were both whooped but it feels good to be worn out from another great weekend out...
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks