MT. GARFIELD
6,765 ft.
March 27, 1999
By Tim Briese
Mt. Garfield anchors the southern end of the dramatic Bookcliffs a few miles northeast of Grand Junction. Its cliffy ramparts tower some 2000 feet above the Grand Valley, dominating the landscape for miles around. Over the years I had driven by the mountain numerous times on I-70, which passes directly below its southern flank, and thought it would be an interesting challenge to climb sometime when I was passing through.
An opportunity presented itself one day in late March when I was returning from a Spring Break camping trip in Utah with my family. We stayed overnight in Grand Junction, and I rose early the next morning and drove a few miles east on the interstate to the trailhead, located just north of the freeway outside of Palisade. The trailhead elevation was only 4800 feet, making it the lowest point from which I had ever begun a hike in Colorado. I had read a route description in Scott Warren’s fine book “100 Hikes in Colorado”, and it proved to be an excellent and informative guide for this outing.
I struck off up the trail with my labs Allie and Sadie and immediately began a sharp ascent up the spine of a dramatic ridge composed of Mancos shale. The shale was an interesting dark-colored clay material, not quite like either dirt or rock, but having a texture seemingly in between the two. The ridge was as barren as could be, too, harboring virtually no plant life. After a strenuous 600 foot ascent up the ridge I came to a rocky area where boulders lay about on slopes of beige-colored sandstone. These slopes were just fertile enough to host a few hardy pinyons and junipers. Dark seams of coal lay embedded in the sandstone in a few places.
The trail wound upward across these slopes and traversed across a steeply sloping area where a careless slip could have spelled disaster, or at the very least, a major inconvenience. The highway was quite a sight well over a thousand vertical feet below. I hustled rapidly up the trail so that my family would not have to wait too long for me back at the motel. The trail carried me up to a more gently sloping area before it climbed again a short distance up to the top of the summit plateau. From here it was an easy stroll through a juniper forest a half mile to the west up a slight grade to the highest point.
The summit lay at the far western end of a broad plateau, at the brink of precipitous cliffs that dropped sharply away to the west and south, while the plateau sloped gently away back to the northeast. The views from the summit were spectacular. Far below in the Grand Valley I observed orchards and farms along the Colorado River, and I-70 running to the west past Grand Junction. The Grand Mesa rose majestically to the east, and the rugged front of the Bookcliffs curved around to the northwest. The summit was marked with a flagpole mounted in a pile of rocks.
On the vigorous climb to the summit I hiked two miles and climbed about 2000 feet of elevation gain. I set a brisk pace and did the ascent in a little under an hour, benefiting from the richer air on this relatively low elevation hike.
After admiring the views from this incredible vantage point for about twenty minutes I began my descent. I scooted rapidly back down the trail, and encountered two solo male hikers coming up. One of them told me he lived in the area and did this climb frequently for a workout. I surmised that a workout in such a grand place would considerably benefit the mind and soul as well as the body. A few raindrops began to fall from the sky as I walked up to the trailhead about forty minutes after I left the summit. I knew that every time I drove past Mt. Garfield on I-70 in the future I would gaze up at it and reminisce about this fine adventure.
