Around the end of May this year I took a little time away from the desk and the computer and the microphones and the recording studios and the clients and the commerce and joined my old buddy Wayne Trivelpiece for a guys-only road trip up to the area around Moab, Utah. We wanted to do some hiking and photography in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, two of the several amazing government owned nature preserves that form southern Utah’s famed “Grand Circle.”
We chose late May on purpose for the weather. Spring and Fall are the times to explore this area if you have the inclination. At altitudes of 5 to 6000 feet, winter and even early spring can often include snow and very low temps, but by mid-June the area begins heating up to 100° or more daily… too hot and dry to enjoy being out in mid-day. Wayne and I also decided that, even though we have both spent our share of nights camped out on the ground over the years, we’re getting a little too creaky now to bother taking an hour every day just to get our bodies moving again. (Although our wives still think we’re pretty hot). So we took a double room with a kitchenette in Moab and made day-trips from there, opting for real beds, a hot shower, and a refrigerator for our hiking provisions. (The old ice machine down the hall also worked wonders on the aching joints after many miles of walking over rock every day!)
By the time we had driven the 450 miles north to Moab from my home in Phoenix, there wasn’t much day left to do more than check in, talk to the rangers in the local visitor center, plan out the next few days of activity, and grab some grub at the local micro-brew. The town of Moab is not much to look at, having been founded originally as a phosphate mining community, but it has the advantage of sitting right on the Colorado River and is surrounded on all sides by huge rock formations. In the last 20 years or so it’s become a big center for mountain biking and 4-wheel off-road activity. The “Slick Rock” trail is there, probably the most famous mountain bike trail in the world, and people from all over come to amuse the local orthopedists with newer and ever more creative fractures, abrasions, and contusions as they tumble and dive from their bikes on the highly challenging trail. The local rangers advised us that, unless we were already experienced mountain biking aficionados, we should avoid it and stick to hiking.
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