Clouds and weather moving in for the next few days. Hopefully significant snow in the mountains. Today I started at the Poleo Trail and went to the Skinner cabin. Last person that lived there left in 1953. Built in early 1900's. I connected with D5 which is a nice trail. Saw a cave from above that would be good to explore some day. Could not get to it from where I was. Then looped around D7 back to the car. There are still more trails in this area I have not explored.
The Liberty Cap is a rock dome you can see when you are looking up at the Colorado National Monument. Today I went up the Corkscrew trail to the Ute canyon trail. I walked into the canyon a few miles and then went up to the Liberty Cap. I wandered around up on the top of the canyon and then came down the Liberty Cap trail. Nice day for it. Mostly 50 up on the trail and 60 in the valley.
Biking from the house to Grand Junction:
Walked up bottom mile or so of Palisade Plunge. Too much for me on a mountain bike but it is 32 miles long and maybe I would want to mountain bike or ski the top 10 miles or so that is up on the Grand Mesa:
In town:
Bike or ski? 60 in Fruita today so biking would be good. On the other hand Grand Mesa has been good every time for skiing. Since I went biking yesterday it was easy to decide on the ski option today.
It hasn't snowed since last week. The groomed trails are nice but the snow off the groomers isn't great since it went above freezing the last few days. Today was the County Line trailhead. Another group of nice trails with some mountain views and some more lakes. These trails connect to the Grand Mesa Nordic council trails to make a large network of trails.
Looking out at Palisade on the same day. Palisade Rim trail down in the valley:
