The Secret of: The Palisade Rim Trail, Palisade, Colorado

Well this “Secret of” story is a little far afoot for locals as it is on the west side of Colorado, but if you are ever passing through the Palisade area and want a cool trail to hike, try out the Palisade Rim Trail.

    Palisade is one of our favorite places to visit, especially in the spring. Locals know this is where Palisade peaches come from, but lesser known is that this is a mini Napa valley for Colorado supporting a bushel full of small craft wineries with each having their own local vineyards. Why spring?  Well it’s the time that all the fruit trees are blooming, making the small valley awash in pinks, purples and whites.   This makes for a pleasant biking trip to go from winery to winery doing wine tasting and enjoying the view.

    The view from atop of the Palisade Rim Trail, which quickly climbs out of the valley up the side of a cliff, is just as stunning.   Unfortunately our trip this year happened just as the trees were coming into bloom, so not as spectacular as most years, but still pretty.

   So what’s the secret of the Palisade Trail besides the view of the valley?   Well you might think that it is the proud stand of rock spires, or hoodoos, which dot the trail all along the way that give this trail the nickname “Little Bryce Canyon”, but you would be wrong.  Still, they are stunning and plentiful, worth taking the trail unto themselves.

   Okay, maybe it is not as much a secret if you do some research on the web, but it was a surprise to us as we were coming to the top of the first rim trail loop to “discover” a plethora of petroglyphs festooning the walls of the small cliffs at this location.  Many social trails following along the cliff face and bring you to mostly images of wild game, deer, antelope, and elk pecked into the rock by ancient Ute tribes hunting the upper mesa.  One can only imagine how this mesa top once supported these native American nomads in their subsistence.

    The loop trail connects to an upper loop trail which takes you further into the rock spires and supposedly more petroglyphs, but we decided to leave that for another trip.   Enjoy the pictures and leave your comments and usual in the comment link above.