Snowshoeing on the Grand Mesa

Well, winter is finally here! We've had 3 storms come thru Western Colorado in the last week, all leaving snow in Fruita. The last storm dumped nearly 6 inches, which is quite a bit for us. Normally Fruita doesn't get more than 2-3" and it melts off by noon. That is the perfect amount of snow in my opinion! With all the white stuff in the valley, we knew there would be a lot in the mountains, so we decided to break out the snow shoes today & head up on the Grand Mesa. The elevation up where we were playing was nearly 11,000 feet & the temps were in the single digits! Though it was a bit chilly, the sun was out and once we got moving we felt fine.
















Daisy was having a blast, she loves being out in the snow. There were quite a few other people out either on showshoes or on cross country skis and it seemed like they all had dogs with them. Daisy had so much fun playing with the other dogs, running thru the powdery snow!






















Catherine seemed to be having just as much fun as Daisy, she really gets a kick out of snowshoeing. Guess that's what happens when you grow up in Sunny SoCal! She also likes the 'workout benefit' of running around in the powder.






























Me, running thru the snow. With deep powder, elevation of near 11k feet and me being out of shape I had a hard time running more than 50 yrds! Sad, huh?

















Catherine seemed to think there was a pretty funny comparison going on here, the ice beard! What, it was cold!

Fall Family picture & a motorcycle ride

Around mid-November Catherine, Daisy & I took a drive to the La Sal Mountains, which is in the range that sits above Moab, UT. I had been up in this area the week before on my motorcycle & thought that it was a simply amazing area & I wanted to show Catherine.

We took our family photo up there, it was pretty hard getting Daisy to sit still for 30 seconds, but after a few tries we got it.














When I was up there on my motorcycle the week before I saw a Lynx, which was a first or me. It was just larger than a house cat, had big, pointy ears, massive paws & a round bobbed tail. It was a pretty amazing sight. That ride was my first 'big' ride on my new KLR, I rode from our place in Fruita to the La Sals by the way of the Onion Creek trail. I quit counting the stream crossings after 15, I think there ended up being near 20, it was pretty fun crossing the stream that many times, I had to try not getting too wet. Riding up the canyon was amazing, there's some neat scenery up there. Eventually I crossed into the La Sal Natl. Forest. While riding thru the forest I thought to myself, 'I have to get back in this area, it's amazing!' Huge pine trees, amazing views, etc! I stopped the bike & walked around the area as the road started to loose elevation.

























I saw some footprints from a massive wild turkey. I couldn't help but wonder where he would be around Thanksgiving, probably doing his best to hide. I rode into Moab for a early dinner, then rode back to Fruita. It ended up being nearly 250 miles round trip, with about 1/3 of it being offroad. I can't wait to do it again!