Mr. Light and I always celebrate our anniversary by taking a little trip. Lately we've been exploring towns in Colorado that we usually drive through or visit for a day, but never stay overnight. This year we picked Grand Junction as our destination for a three day stay. It's only a few hours away from us so we were able to spend quite a bit of time exploring the many attractions this city has to offer.
One of the many adventures we chose was a hike in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (named after Scott McInnis, a popular politician here - Republican, of course!), a part of the larger Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness We decided to hike the Pollack Bench trail, a loop trail in the red rock canyons west of Grand Junction.
The trail follows the "bench", which is the terrain along the top of the canyons. Several places on the trail were the narrow ledge between two deep sandstone canyons, probably no more than 50 feet at some places. Although Charlie the dog got to run around off-leash legally, we kept him tethered at these points. It would be an easy thing for a young dog to get so excited about a rabbit or lizard that he could fall off the cliff. He had a great time, and fortunately didn't fall off any cliffs.
The Pollack Bench trail also leads to a loop called Rattlesnake Canyon, which apparently has the second largest concentration of natural arches in the nation and possibly the world. We just hiked the Bench trail,and even though the map we had said it was a 2.2 mile hike, it was 7.7 miles or so. We didn't mind. It was a partly cloudy day, and not too hot. The scenery made it all worth it, and we had no time limit since it was Sunday and we didn't have a long drive ahead to get home. It was a perfect time of year to catch some of the cactus in bloom. This beautiful deep red cactus is the Claret Cup. My favorite color.
Even though at first glance the high desert area looks pretty dry and mostly covered with pinyon and juniper, the understory is varied and healthy. The vegetation and animals are adapted to a very dry climate, and have different ways of coping with it. Plants either live quickly and send seeds scattering early in the spring, or grow close to the ground to conserve moisture in the wind and heat. They have grey-green leaves, like this buckwheat
or only grow during the moister winter months, when it snows and/or frosts, and then go dormant during the summer. The crypto-biotic crust, rock lichens and mosses (yes, there's moss!) turn black during the summer months and are an emerald green in the winter and early spring.
I love the desert flowers, and want to try to grow some of my favorites, which include Prince's Plume...
Perky Sue (hymenoxys)....
Pink cactus...
and a flowering bush that I cannot identify, but smelled so wonderful I would put my face in it every time I saw one. It wasn't potentilla, but looked a lot like it. I'm sure I've passed them often on hikes later in the summer and never knew what a sweet yet somewhat sharp smell they could have! I really can't describe it.
I'm so lucky to live in a spot that allows me to go either down the river to the red rock desert country or up the river to the high alpine meadows, all within an hour or two of my home. Lately we've been exploring down river, and the canyons of the high plateau of Colorado and Utah are just beautiful to me. I'll leave you with a panoramic view of the Colorado National Monument, which we also visited during this trip. It was absolutely breathtaking. I'd highly recommend it!