Grandma Mesa (Grand Mesa)

So one of the reasons we moved to Grand Junction was the "Mesa". We know that the desert and town would be scorching during July and August, but we told our selves that we could always escape to the 10000' Mesa for a break. Here it is August and we hadn't made it there yet. It has in fact been hot enough to keep us from doing much outside, so we finally got around to arranging a day trip. Here's the plan: Load up Grandma Bobbie's minivan with all the family (Heather, Chris, Bobbie, and Cailan) all the dogs (Dusty, Buffy, And the ever-eager Utah) a bunch of food, and one big red bicycle! The Mesa has lots of trails and lakes and Grandma agreed to watch Cailan throw rocks for a few hours while Heather & I chased Utah around some trails. High temperature in GJ 95 - 100, high temp on the Mesa 76! (about 65 when we started riding).


Did I mention that it's wild flower season? The trail we rode is named "West Bench" and is a 20 mile out and back. It starts by a lake, goes to the top of a ski area and finally climbs up to the mesa top before returning by the same route. Since this is on a mesa, there is relatively little climbing (for 20 miles of mountain riding). We started at about 9200' and climbed to just over 10,000'. The trail is mostly smooth

with a few rocky sections.

Once past the mile of rocks, it really was a beautiful trail that was almost swallowed by the mass of flowers growing everywhere

Needless to say - Heather smiled.

After the trail left the ski area it joined an old road to climb up to the top of the mesa. Thi was really the only big climb of the day, but it was a big grunt at elevation.

Still chock full o' flowers though!

The trail finally reached the top where it leveled off and was amazingly flat and open. It was dotted with medium sized lakes and boulders. Almost every boulder seemed to have it's own private ground squirrel perched on it. At first I thought they were pikas, but alas not.

There were a few other odd things up there as well

Not really sure what that building was, but we saw it and about fifty transmission towers at the edge of the mesa. Fortunately we also saw this:

After a short break by a lake (happy dog!) we headed back to rescue Grandma, eat a big picnic and drive through the rest of the mesa. A really beautiful day!