Miracle Rock

hamtron5000

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Jan 7, 2015
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Well, it's January and the itch to go camping has hit me pretty hard. It always seems to spring up at the more inconvenient times of the year, but I decided to persevere, test some of my new gear, and hit up a local favorite location of mine for a winter overnight. I work Tues-Sat, so on Sunday the 25th of January I headed up to Miracle Rock for a chilly overnight, my first of 2015.

Miracle Rock is a balanced rock structure in the Glade Park area near Grand Junction, close to the Utah border on a part of the Uncompahgre Plateau. The Miracle Rock area is BLM land near the Little Dolores River and is accessed through the Colorado National Monument. Sorry for the lower quality cell phone pictures, but my nicer camera generally stays home in the cold weather. Here's the camping area. It was a bit chilly, and with an elevation of just barely over 7,000 ft, the snow was sticking around.

cellcoldcamp by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

I got up there around 11:00am, and the sun was shining. Before long it became balmy, and the temperature neared 40 degrees. My friends Brevin and Diana had agreed to meet me up there for a hike and some lunch, so I set up my little backpacking tent in the camping area. It's hard to see, but I've got a small red tent behind that little tree there.

celltinytent by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

Here's a slightly better picture of the tent and chair (and books!) setup. This picture is actually from a very similar trip I took to Miracle Rock in January of 2014, but I was using the same setup back then and this is a clearer picture.

tentandchair by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

My friends arrived around noon. Brevin's training for a half marathon, so he decided he would go running on the nearby gravel roads while Diana and I hiked up to the rock. The trail's only about a half mile and in good weather is really easy except for the altitude. I'm a large dude and have been pretty sedentary this winter, so I was huffing and puffing in no time.

miracle rock trail sign by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

This day there was snow, both rotten and fresher, and lots of ice. I did a lot of accidental ice skating and probably doubled or tripled the distance avoiding the iced-over steep and shaded parts. But! We were rewarded with some beautiful vistas. This is from the south side of the rock itself. There's a trail over there that climbs to the top of the ridge and then follows it around. There's an arch back there somewhere that I haven't been to yet, but it's on my list.

cellcliff by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

Then here's the view that I came up there for, looking southwest towards Utah.

celltowardsUtah by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

And let's not forget the rock itself!

IMG_20150125_121823 by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

From the right angle, you can actually see daylight underneath the bottom of the rock, where it's perched precariously on a base.

light under rock by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

It's even bigger than it looks; here's D checking it out.

cellDandrock by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

And here's me with a selfie looking like a goober.

cellfierock by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

There's a pretty natural amphitheater nearby, so we hiked over that way and around the base of the cliff too. I didn't get any good shots today, but here's a shot from a past trip in the summer sunshine.

miracletheater by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

We then hiked back down to the camping area, met up with Brevin, and had a delicious lunch. IMO, nothing tastes better than a hot can of Dinty Moore beef stew heated on a camp stove! While we ate, several other groups arrived to take the hike, and one large family came by to release a number of balloons to honor the one-year anniversary of a deceased friend who had loved this area.

After an hour or so everybody else packed up to leave. I read a bunch of my book, enjoyed a spectacular sunset, and enjoyed a brisk toe-warming session before crawling into bed pretty shortly after dark.

firefeet by andyhamilton519, on Flickr

I was testing the insulation on my new inflated sleeping pad, and it worked quite well. My only regret was not bringing an extra pair of socks, as mine had gotten damp during the day. I ended up taking them off and laying them under my torso while I slept, and wrapping my feet in an extra blanket down in the toe box of my sleeping bag. Miraculously (pun?), I kept quite comfortable.

Morning came, I packed up, and headed back to town for a nice breakfast. Nothing spectacular this trip, but it was nice to dust off the equipment and hit the trail again. I've been (sadly) pretty sedentary since my last trip to the Uncompahgre last September, and was surprised how winded I was after even the short Miracle Rock hike. Time to start getting back in shape for all the other adventures I have planned for this year!

Thanks for checking out my very first trip report.

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Nice view from the top and that rock is really cool. I wouldn't set my tent up next to it on a windy day. Cool report, thanks for sharing!
 
Isn't nature wonderful? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (Credit to Monty Python)

I wouldn't even consider buying Dinty Moore Beef Stew unless I was going camping in the snow. There's nothing like it.

Whenever I eat canned food on a trip I heat the cans in a pot of boiling water. Leave the cans sealed. You don't have to watch them. They can't burn. No pot to wash. A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one. (Thank you Robbie, RIP Levon)
 
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