Thanksgiving in Canyonlands

Brian and Angela Hays invited Jacqueline and I to come stay with them out in Island in the Sky and celebrate Thanksgiving. We were all for it as I have known Brian and his family for many years. We are only a couple hours drive from them, but found it hard to make the trip with work commitments. Having the whole week off from school at least, not basketball though, we took the couple days we had and made the drive. Brian had to work, but he was able to take the whole crew on a hike. It was only a short hike but was perfect because it was good for the pregnant wife and the rest of the whole crew too. There were eight of us total as Angela's sister made the trip along with Brian's sister Sarah, his bro Matt, and his mom. We took it nice and leisurely enjoying the desert and the slickrock as we went. Even thought the air temperature was a bit chilly it was still a great time to be in the desert as the snow was not going to stop our progress. 

Brian had a funny moment on the hike when he pretended to be giving us a guided hike interpretational tour when another visitor came by. That visitor began following us, so he increased our party to nine. Brian was nice to him and you had to feel for someone who was alone for Thanksgiving. That is definitely a holiday where I appreciate my close family of Jacqueline and the baby growing in her tummy. We were only out for a couple of hours because we had to go back and make some turkey dinner. We all crammed into the shed at Brian's house and had an excellent dinner. We played games in the evening, including Brian's newly learned favorite of Ninja destruction. Anything that involved strength, quickness, and a small bit of pain are activities Brian will always participate in. The next day we took a drive to the La Sal National Forest where we picked out a Christmas tree. Ours was rather small because we don't have room to put it in our house. The rest of the crew continued for a day of play in the sun and snow, while we had to return to prepare for a long basketball season.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We had the week off due to Thanksgiving and we had not been out much since basketball had begun. I was crazy busy and Jacqueline was quickly getting crazy pregnant with all the joys of pregnancy including the morning sickness which does not just happen in the morning. We had to pick an easy place where it would not be too challenging for Jacqueline. We picked Black Canyon because it was not too far away and the trails did not seem very long. We drove up and it was free since it was the off season. Our first goal was to go out to all of the viewpoints we could handle. It was a rather unique place because it was much different from the vast Grand Canyon. It was so incredibly vertical. We wandered through the snow on the short trails out to the viewpoints to look down and see the big drops. Finally we drove to the end of the road and took the longest trail on this side of the park. We hiked the Warner Point Trail out to Warner Point. All in all only about a two mile walk. There were some icy steps to negotiate, but for the most part it was just a pretty hike. We got some good vertical views down to the river and on the surrounding cliffs. We took a look to try to find the route down to the river and while there seemed to be a few promising spots, the crusty snow seem to cover up any discernable trails. We will have to come back when there is no snow, but not when it is too hot either. All in all an enjoyable day being tourists in a park that neither of us had experienced before.

Wilson Mesa Trail

Fall was quickly turning to winter as the mountains from our front porch were starting to get snow covered. We knew we only had a few more weekends of good hiking left. We went back out to the Woods Lake Trailhead, which was quickly becoming one of our favorite places to go. We thought briefly at attempting to climb Little Cone. It looked like a gradual slope to the top, but thought better of it and instead chose to hike the Wilson Mesa Trail. We parked a ways above the trailhead since there was no parking there and walked back. The trail was in good shape and almost immediately we saw a very scared coyote. We were happy to see it, but you could tell he was sketchy of humans. We learned that in this area people just shoot coyotes for the fun of it, so it was not surprising. The trail climbed steeply at first, but then began to level out. It was a perfect trail for Jacqueline now a month pregnant. It climbed slowly through the trees which were just on the edge of being too late to see much color. There was actually more color on the coniferous trees looking like Christmas trees decorated with Aspen leaf ornaments. The views of the jagged peaks around Mt. Wilson were excellent today. It made me excited for the next summer when we could go climb those peaks possibly. The trail hit an old road and we followed that until it became the Elk Creek Trail. We took this one uphill. If we would have had a map, we would have realized that this trail met up with the Navajo Lake trail and we could have made a loop. Not feeling too ambitious with a pregnant lady, we decided to call it a day after between 4 and 5 miles. We had to come back the same way and putting in more than ten miles might be a little too much for the zygote growing in Jacqueline's belly. A quick picture and then back down the same way. We took our opportunity to soak in the mountain views as we knew we may not get another opportunity to get into the mountains for a while. We finished nicely and I was proud of Jacqueline for still getting out even growing a little baby.