MOAB, UT

We’ve spent five fun filled days at Moab, UT, stopping overnight at Ogden, UT on our way. This is the adventure center of canyon country. Moab has endless miles of mountain biking trails, hiking trails, river rafting, boat tours and rock climbing.  It is one of the most famous destinations for 4 wheel drive enthusiasts, or “jeepers” as they are known locally.  Add to this the fact that it is only five miles from Arches National Park and thirty five miles from Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park.  Now you know why so many fun seekers come here.  We were amazed how it has grown since we were here four years ago.

Dead Horse Point State Park

Dead Horse Point State Park, which we have never been to before, towers 2,000 feet above the Colorado River and provides a breathtaking panorama of Canyonlands’ sculptured pinnacles and buttes.  According to legend, the point was once used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa.  Cowboys rounded up these horses, herded them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point.  The neck, which is only 30 yards wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush, creating a natural corral surrounded by cliffs.  The cowboys then chose the horses they wanted, and for reasons unknown, left the other horses corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River.  From the point, layers of geologic time may be viewed, revealing 300 million years of the earth’s geologic history.  We viewed the mountain peaks across the canyon and the river below, enjoying it all.

 

 
Canyonlands National Park

Our next stop was Canyonlands National Park, which is Utah’s largest national park (530 square miles.)  We’ve been here before, this time visiting some of the places we’ve seen, and some new ones to us.  Around every turn are sublime vistas, unique canyon country with river gorges, distant mesas, and mountain ranges.  The red coloring of the sandstone make all this even more breathtaking.  Water and gravity have been the prime architects of this land, cutting flat layers of sedimentary rock into hundreds of canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches and spires.  We visited Mesa Arch and neither one of us remembered the hike there, but enjoyed seeing this beautiful arch.  The trail there and back was marked very well with rocks and tree limbs, weaving up and down and through shrubs, a few flowers and cacti.

 
Colorado River Jetboat Ride

We spent four hours on the Colorado River the next day, taking a jet-boat ride through Canyonlands National Park.  It was fantastic, seeing from the water what we looked at from above the day before.  We traveled 64 miles discovering arches, petroglyphs, rock climbers, a petrified forest, a fossil bed, places where well-known movies were filmed (Thelma and Louise), and many more.  Many pictures were taken of the rock outcrops, canyons, spires, arches, and more.  A fun day of excitement on the water.

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
Arches National Park

Arches National Park contains more than 2,000 cataloged natural arches of salmon-colored sandstone that have been sculpted by water, gravity and ice.  In order to be considered an arch, an opening must measure at least three feet (in any direction).  We drove the 18-mile scenic drive, seeing Balanced Rock, a 3,600-ton boulder that looks as it could (or should) topple any minute. Windows, a pair of huge arches that dwarf hikers, is another formation we viewed.  All the arches are so different from the next as some are so thin and fragile it’s a wonder they stand.  There are two viewing points for Delicate Arch which is on Utah license plates.  We stopped at Fiery Furnace, which we hiked the last time we were here.  The only way to go on this ranger-led hike through the stone labyrinth is by paying and reserving a spot, since one can sooo easily get lost among the fins and gullies.