Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Grand Junction, Colorado and then hiking around the Colorado National Monument for a couple days while my wife got a tattoo done.

I hiked the No-Throughfare trail, and the Devil’s Kitchen trail the first day, and then the entirety of the Monument Trail and back the next. I started the day at the Dream Cafe, with the largest pancakes I’ve ever seen. They were absolutely phenomenal, and the perfect thing for a long day hiking.

I encountered maybe a half dozen people on the trail the entire time, and the weather was crystal clear with highs around 60 degrees. It was absolutely perfect, and I got to see the park the way it was meant to be seen. The only sounds were the sounds of footsteps, wind, and wildlife. I hiked as far back into No-Throughfare as I could, but wound up stopping after the trail stopped being maintained. I simply didn’t have the footwear or desire to boulder somewhat dangerously a hundred or so feet in the air. So I turned around and did the Devil’s Kitchen hike, and hung out around the rocks for a while enjoying the view. Below are the pictures of the hike. I took some videos and panorama shots but I’ll have to figure a better way of uploading them to the site. I about crashed this site uploading all these…