Desert World

Last day of work at The Sky Hotel, then I quickly packed my camping/backpacking gear and we headed out of town in the snowy coooooold weather --> one of the reasons we wanted to skip town for the desert. Mollie, Jeff, and myself set out for a 4 day trip into the Moab, UT area.


We first drove to the Colorado National Monument Park to spend our first night. Arrived in the dark to set up camp and relax as we have not been camping in a while. So nice to relax and forget about everything other than the moment. It was cold the first night, but felt nice to crawl into our bags. Awaken by the sun, we all amerged from our warm bags and began cleaning up so that we could check out this site a bit before we continued our drive to Arches National Park. Arches was amazing... like nothing I have ever seen. We embarked on Mollie's favorite hike into the Devils Garden and here are a few photos. All sorts of arches and amazing sandstone features. Several portions of the trail were all rock and we were allowed to play around and climb and walk where ever we wanted as long as we were not trampling vegetation and cryptobiotic soils.
AMAZING!














partition arch













Mollie & Jeff underneath landscape arch




Next stop was the town of Moab to get some information on camping and much anticipated putt-putt golf. Although this course was well below par as far as its condition, I excelled and was victorious. Prize=small fry at the nearby McDonalds. No hole-in-ones were awarded unfortunately. This place was seriously the most ghetto putt-putt i have seen. Seems more like it was a place to ride go carts and they just happen to have a putt-putt course set up that has not been worked on in the past 5 years.


After claiming the last campsite, we started a fire and cooked dinner (chicken and rice). Sleepytime. Slept in a bit more than planned b.c we were surrounded by canyon walls. Quickly gathered everything and prepared for our backpacking adventure. Arrived at the Canyonlands National Park Visitors Center to find my friends Austin & Rob! I guess it is a popular place to go for people in the Roaring Fork Valley. They did not have a reservation ahead of time so they just jumped in with our group. Apparently all of the good spots are reserved a few weeks in advance. Up to 7 people are allowed at each site, thus we combined for maximum adventure fun.















Austin Squeezes


Let the backpacking begin. We had to pack in all our water as there are no water sources. That makes for a heavy pack on the first day, but alas we all had high hopes of the adventure. Every step is simply awe inspring! This landscape is such a contrast to what we are used to seeing, and for me to what i grew up around. Hiking and hiking on we played in this canyon, sat and had a snack, discussed geological topics, and soaked it all in. We arrived at our campsite around 3:30 knowing we would have time to explore a bit more w/o our packs. In my opinion this was the climax of the backpacking trip. So much exploring and playing... seemed like endless amounts of fun. I kept thinking to myself, this is a gigantic playground for outdoor enthusiasts. We explored until dinner time and we were all thirsty. Heading back, we were all still in amazement of the landscape of rocks. Watched the sunset and then started cooking dinner, which turned out to be quite the surprise for mollie, jeff, and I. We bought a soup mix that made a half gallon of chicken noodle (or what we had thought was chicken noodle). After thinking about it, we wondered how there could be chicken in the tiny little package... turns out there was none, ha. It also said on the package "add more noodles if desired," thus we wondered if
there were enough noodles in the mysterious package. Finally, it was time to reveal this mystery. Turned out to be pretty much mostly broth with a few carrots, celery, and noodles. We did purchase a delicious loaf of bread to dip in the soup luckily for our hungers sake. After the dinner adventure we had the glow-in-the-dark frisbee adventure in our own little canyon. Evantually turned in for the night, which happened to be gorgeous. Woke up the next morning and pretty much cleaned up camp and were on our way back out via a different route. Again, such beautiful country to travel through and experience. By the time the last mile or so came though, most of us were ready to be back at the cars and out of our shoes or sandals. All together it was a great adventure, one that i will remember for years!










view of the sandstone wilderness














Sunset at from our camp



















ladder on the trail