I thought I would take a break from my normal posts and show you some pictures from one of my favorite hikes. Kait and I ventured over to Grand Junction over Memorial Day weekend to spend some time with friends and family. Monday morning my good friend JJ, his friend Tarah and I decided to hike up Mt. Garfield. It’s a grueling, but very rewarding hike. We wanted to beat the heat, so we got to trail-head at 7am and here’s the sign that we’re greeted with:
What this sign doesn’t tell you is that a good chunk of the 2000′ is within the first 3/4 of a mile!
Here’s a view of the beginning of the trail that was taken as we were coming down a different trail:
If you look closely you’ll see people hiking up the top of the dirt ridge. The first chunk of the trail is only a few feet wide and is covered in loose dirt and rocks. It makes for an interesting hike.
About a mile into the hike you’re greeted with this awesome little green park. You can climb up onto the rocks where the following picture is taken and get a really cool view of Grand Valley. You can also get a good idea of how much further you have to go. The trail goes all the way up to the point in the middle-left of the picture:
After leaving the green grassy area you get to start hiking along the bottom of a cliff face where there’s loose dirt and a steep drop off. It’s not as bad as it sounds/looks, but it can be a bit scary for someone doing it their first time. Here’s JJ and Tarah posing on that part with the green grassy area in the background.
Once you make it past that part you get a beautiful view of Palisade and Grand Junction. The mountain in the background is the Mesa.
Not too far after where the last picture was taken, you get to the top! The view from up there is amazing! The picture below is facing southwest towards the Colorado National Monument.
In the rocks at the top Tarah found a carving that serves as a great reminder that the beauty that we saw was designed by a loving God.
Since it was getting pretty hot out by this time, we decided that we better start heading back down. We didn’t take many pictures on the way down, but Tarah did make me stop and flex!
We ended up choosing a fork in the trail on the way down that is a bit steeper, but less traveled. That meant that it wouldn’t be as loose and slippery.
Overall, it was an awesome hike! I definitely recommend taking a few hours and doing this hike. You will enjoy it! Make sure you take plenty of water along too! We saw lots of people on the trail in all sorts of non-hiking clothing like jeans with small water bottles. It would not be fun to hike this like that.
God Bless,
Clint Fix