Finally Moab - Wednesday July 1 - destination Moab, Utah

I awoke at 7:30 AM to the sound of voices arguing just outside my Las Vegas hotel room door. Recognizing it was not my alarm, so I had another hour, I tried to go back to sleep. I only partially succeeded. I gave up and got up at 8:15. I drove the 4 blocks to I-15 starting at 9:15, only to run into one of the worse traffic snarls I have ever seen. Those 4 blocks took 25 minutes. The pop radio station I had found coming into town was a little high energy for my morning condition, so I moved the dial on. A classical station helped soothe me through the jam.

My eyes were nearly swollen shut, and my vision was blurry. I really should not have been driving. Outside of Vegas things got pretty desolate, so decided to give it a while and see. Gradually they got better.

I had been trying to visit Moab, UT for several years. Each trip i planned got cancelled for one reason or another. Finally i was only a few hours away. I was determined to make better progress than I had yesterday, so I plugged away without stop for a few hours.

State line. Goodbye Nevada.

I skirted across the northwest corner of Arizona. Goodbye Arizona.

I stopped for gas in St. George, Utah. It was a pretty little town. I stopped for a Subway lunch in Cedar City. I was really surprised at how beautiful Utah is (and classical music was the perfect accompaniment). The only place in Utah I had ever been was Salt Lake city. I guess my impression was formed by that. My impression was wrong. This was luscious green mountains sloping down to picturesque huge ranches – replete with iconic western ranch houses. I thought about re-routing through Zion national park, and Bryce Canyon park. But I knew those roads would be slower, and that I would want to stop and hike, and I was already going to be later into Moab than I wanted. So I plugged on. Eventually the classical station faded out, and a good country station was all I could find. But I found my new theme song – Toby Keith, “As Good As I Once Was”. The interstate did take me through Fishlake National Forest. The whole drive was full of beautiful red rock canyon lands, and beautiful green forested mountains, and stunning green ranch valleys sparsely dotted with quaint little towns. I only stopped a few times, and just to take some pictures.

By the time I turned onto state road 191 for the last 30 miles into Moab, I was ready to be there. Enough driving for one day. The drive in was interesting, as I spotted climbing, hiking, and biking opportunities everywhere. I arrived in Moab around 4:30 PM, and did a quick drive through to check it out, then headed to my hotel. I picked a great little value hotel. One block off of main street, 2 blocks from the center of town; very clean, comfortable, and functional, although not luxurious. It was mostly occupied by a tour bus full of European retirees – German, Scandinavian, and a few Brits - which made for some interesting elevator conversations. I had a little trouble with internet connections – but the young lady at the desk was very friendly and helpful getting me connected. She informed me that ALL hotels in Moab share a single router/uplink, and that THIS hotel had gone the extra distance (recently) of installing a fibre optic connection to that uplink. All I can tell you is it was slow. I can only imagine what the other hotels experience.

I took a few hours to unpack, shower, and rest my burning eyes. Then an hour or so for some internet work – tried to sort through my options for how to spend tomorrow, so I would know which adventure stores to visit, and what to ask for. Its expected to be 109 degrees. Even though I brought biking gear – shorts, helmet, gloves – I decided hiking and a little climbing was the best thing. It was cheapest, let me cover the biggest area, not lose time renting equipment, and best manage the heat. I found some local trails leading along the river, which would have more shade and be cooler because of the river. I would start out in Arches National Park. When it got too hot, I would move to those local trails.

Once a plan for tomorrow was settled, I headed out – walking! – to check out the town and find some dinner. There were fewer restaurants along the main drag than it had appeared when I drove through, and almost no bars. There were a lot of breakfast shops that were now closed; and craft stores – John and Dorinda would love this place. The few restaurants were filled to capacity, with a surprising number of families with kids – don’t know why that surprised me. I finally settled on a combination ice cream store and diner, called “Spokes” – targeting bicyclers i'm guessing from the motif. They had a walkup window for ice cream, a little rounded half circle bar, and a set of tables. I sat at the bar. I had a couple of beers, and a pretty good, huge, and reasonably priced dinner – including a take-out box with half of it for tomorrow. I queried the locals behind the bar about hiking, biking, and climbing spots. But alas, they were of little help. If you lived most of your life in Moab, and you are working in an ice cream store/restaurant rather than a sporting goods store, its because you are not interested. Not surprisingly they were of little help.

I finished dinner about 10:30 PM. There was a funky little sports bar a block off of main street. I thought about checking it out. But I decided to let it wait until tomorrow. My eyes were screaming at me. Plus I wanted a good night’s rest, and an early start to beat the heat tomorrow. So I walked back to the hotel. I spent another couple hours on the internet - caught up with email; booked a room in Kansas City; tried to catch this journal up with my trip so far (I just can’t keep up).

I slept great !

Arches National Park - Thursday July 2 - Moab, UT

I did not need an alarm to wake up. All the bikers, hikers, kayakers, rafters, and even the retiree sight-seers were up early and packing up the cars in the parking lot – making enough noise to awaken me. I fought it for a while, wanting that last little rest, but finally acquiesced. I showered and dressed, and then walked the 1 block to main street to visit “Love Muffins”. Had my perfect breakfast – a muffin, some juice, and a banana. I got an extra banana for the backpack. The sky was cloudy, promising the day might be less than the predicted 109. But then it also might burn off. I walked another block to a bicycle store to buy a small tube of sun-screen, then back to the hotel and finalized packing my backpack. Knife, long sleeve shirt, sun-screen, chap-stick, 2 liters of water, banana, and a baggie with 2 remaining oatmeal raison cookies John had made (also a paper with the insurance numbers for the new health coverage plan, in case of the worst). I promised John I would save one of the cookies for “the top of something” I climbed.

I drove about 5 miles north to the entrance to Arches National Park. It turns out there is a new paved bike trail all the way there. A one week car pass costs $10 – enter and leave as often as you want. But a senior pass covering all national parks for the rest of my life also costs $10. So I’m now pre-paid.

I pulled into the visitor center to check the park map. Assuming the clouds would burn off, and I might have only a few hours here before the mid-day heat wore me out, I wanted to have a plan. I definitely wanted to see some arches, and I wanted a good climb. The entrance road – just passed the visitor center – is a switch-back that rapidly rises a few hundred feet. Immediately after that are a series of “view” pull-offs. Mindful of not spending too much time sight-seeing from the car, I intended to pass by most of these. But as I drove it the views were so spectacular, I could not help myself. I stopped at every one. My pitiful cell phone camera just could not do justice to the panoramic views, so I’m not posting those shots. But here is the view of the entrance to the park and the visitors center from the top of the switch-backs, looking back to the town of Moab.

“Park Avenue” is obviously named for the similarity to standing in Manhattan with rows of high rise buildings on both sides of the street, you look down between two rows of monstrous stone pillars, so shaped like buildings.

At the front of the park are a number of different stone tower formations. Again, pictures do these little justice. Their strange shapes and awesome size exert an intimidating force upon you.

I hit a number of stops along the road, including the famous Balancing rock, and a number of minor arches. Ninety minutes or so in I decided it was time to head toward the end of the park at a place called “The Devils garden” where a collection of arches are located at the ends of a few hiking trails.

The road passes by a couple of them, so I found a wide spot in the road and hiked in the “back door” to see my first arches up close. Then I headed on to the parking lot and trail heads. I had decided to walk in to see “Landscape Arch” and “Double O” arch. I figured I could do the 2.1 mile hike each way in a couple of hours, and have plenty left for other adventures. At the trail head a map showed the various trails. A man and his wife stood there studying it as I came up. He read aloud the distance. She thought for a second and then replied, “that’s a long way”. I stepped up, reached out my arms and placed the pointer finger on each hand on the two endpoints. I then moved my arms away from the map and toward her, holding the relative positions. “Not really”, I said. “Its only that far”. They both laughed. “We can just go to Landscape arch and back” he said, in order to get her to commit. I was glad I was alone.

Landscape arch was 1 mile in. The path was mostly flat hard packed gravel, including a few places where it had been artificially raised. It was as easy as walking a golf course. The trail gets you close to the arch, but not right at it. You can see why. The arch itself is more than half gone. It spans I would guess 100 feet or more. As far as the arches I saw this day, I’d have to call it the ugly duckling.

The trail sign at the fork just above the Landscape arch warns “Double-O arch 1.2 miles: difficult trail for experienced hikers only”. Well that may be a little on the conservative side, but there is no mistaking the trail is way tougher than the Landscape portion – much more fun too. It starts with about 0.2 miles of steep climb up the ridgeline of a rock. The photo below looks back down that line. Landscape arch – right along the arch line - is in the upper right portion of this picture. The white phallus in the middle of the picture is the spot from which the Landscape arch photo above was taken.

The photos below give an idea what much of the climb was like. The Double-O arch is located on the back side of the rock formations shown in the picture below. Each of those formations is constructed of vertical layers or slices of rock almost as if they were laminated together. The second photo shows the tops of those laminated layers running parallel to one another. So the hike proceeded along the top of one layer as it rose, and then bridging to the next and following it.

If you are afraid of heights, skip this video that shows what its like to walk these ridge lines.

Eventually you were on the top of the world and could see forever. Except for a light wind, and a few raven, it is quiet and still. But there is a 360 degree view of beautiful country.

Then finally you go down a little bit, then round a corner in the rock and boom, Double-O arch.

On the hike out I stopped at one more arch. You can walk right under it. A close look reveals at little bit about the geological process. The dessert sun and cold night cause the rock to expand and contract. The sandstone then cracks. The cracks grow fastest where there is pressure from the weight of the rock above. Rain water run-off accelerates the process. Eventually chunks fall off. Which is why they are transient. Also why hanging out under an arch is not the smartest idea. So of course, I did – short snooze.

By the time I had hiked out, refilled my water at the trail head, and cleaned, flushed, and re-medicated my eyes, it was 2:30 PM. The clouds had nearly burned off, and it was starting to warm up. I decided it was time for my climb. I drove the 10 miles back to the spot I had found and pulled off the edge of the road. I packed up, and started hiking.

The dirt was crunchy and soft. My feet sank in a couple inches with each step – an indication of why the rock slide was here. I quickly got across the floor and up to the bottom of the slide. I paused for a minute and walked back and forth, examining the slide and trying to pick my path. Then I started up. The climb was relatively easy. But it was also steep. I had to pause to catch my breath a couple of times. The hours I had already put in, and the heat were noted. My knee was also starting to bark – a couple of miles of un-even ground at the arches no doubt. Once I got about two thirds of the way to the ledge, it got much steeper, and the ground became a bit un-stable. A few times I stepped on a rock, only to have it slide downhill beneath me. So I was just careful where I chose to step, and always had a second point of contact to grab in case the first one abandoned me. I was able to reach the ledge quite easily – about 15 minutes. It was a nice view. That’s my blue car partially behind a tree on the edge of the road in the center of the picture.

I enjoyed the overlook for a few minutes, and caught my breath a little. Then I went back to the rock slide and tried to see how far I could make it to the top of the wall. There was a point where it looked to me like the difficulty of the ascent might challenge the limits of being alone with no equipment and a little tired. Turns out I was right. I finally exhausted all the rubble – boulders to walk on – and reached a point where it was all pure rock climb. There was a crease in the rock, which I could get beyond. But above that it would be a steep slope of crumbly sandstone rock which I could chip away with knicks. If it ever gave way I would have about a 50 degree slide with little or nothing to grab. It was about 3:30 PM and the un-blocked sun was beginning to bake about 95 degrees. I decided it was time to head back down, without reaching the top (as I had suspected).

The photos below show two rock out-croppings - first from the ledge which was roughly their same height; second from as high up as I got, looking down on them.

Once down, I drove out of Arches, and proceeded to the local trail I had read about along the Colorado river. Its an up and down rock trail along the river – much of it either in the shade of the canyon wall, or actually covered by trees on the river side of the trail. The river was pretty calm all along this section. It was pretty and peaceful. The trail is indicated at 3.2 miles to the end. There is supposed to be arches at the end. I made it about half way and then turned around. It was 5:30 PM and I figured it had been a very good day, and was about time to be heading back to town.

I got back to the hotel about 7:15 PM. I got cleaned up and took about 30 minutes to just lay down and rest and hydrate – the heat was catching up to me a little. I thought about the sports bar, but also about the Moab Brewery I had seen on the edge of town. I opted for the latter. Good call.

The food was excellent. The beer was original and tasty. There was a long waiting line for the dining area, but I sat at the bar immediately, and the crew I met was fun. A monster of a man to my left was a teacher who moved just this year from Philly to Denver. He decided to explore a bit this summer vacation, including this trip to Moab. He was headed to Arches tomorrow. I told him all about it. The gentleman to my right was from Colorado, and was with a rafting tour. They had taken one day today to go horseback riding. He is a Colorado horsemen. Apparently the heat got to him, as he fainted and fell off his horse and hit his head. As a horseman he was really embarrassed! (so of course he had to tell all of us the story). He had just gotten back from the ER. He also hurt his shoulder, and so the rafting crew won’t left him participate tomorrow either. But the best was the older (I’m guessing 50s) woman to his right. She is a full time rodeo-er. She had just participated in a rodeo today, but had been eliminated quite early. She blamed her horse, who is new to rodeo. She travels, with horse in horse trailer all over Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, participating in a rodeo every week or two. Apparently she is ranked in the top five in that region. Her aim is to break into the top ranks nationally. She was pure cowgirl. The way she was talking up first monster man to my left, and then me, I think she was kind of a lonely/randy cowgirl too. Anyway, it was a fun dinner. Don’t meet folks like these in Pembroke Pines !