Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Weather: Sunny, low 80s
Steps: Shaun - 6,600?, Shannon - 10,208
For the second morning in a row, we woke up early to get to the Moab Adventure Center by 6:45am for our half-day rafting trip. A bus took us 45 minutes down scenic Rte. 129 to a boat launch, and we spent two hours floating down the Colorado River.
We encountered four sections of class 1 and 2 rapids, with lots of beautiful scenery in between. We saw cliff swallows and a few lizards along the way too.
Our group pulled out before hitting the big rapids further down the river, and then we had to stand around for 15 minutes waiting for the bus to pick us up. Shaun managed to find a lady who was from Arkansas to chat with while we waited.
The bus trip back to the center felt super long, even though it was actually shorter than on the way out. Still, there were beautiful views as we traveled between the canyon walls along the river back to Moab.
At Dead Horse, we walked along a nature trail that featured native and medicinal plants and then visited the nearby visitors center (does that surprise you?). The trail was great, but the visitors center was pretty lame, with its only redeeming quality being awesome windows that looked out over the expanse of the park.
We drove to the end of the point for views of the gooseneck in the Colorado River directly below, as well as Thelma and Louise’s cliff, Shafer Canyon and White Rim Trails, etc...all the places we had seen up close the previous day. It definitely made us appreciate the jeep tour more.
From Dead Horse, we continued down the road to the north section of Canyonlands, called Island in the Sky. We bought a book tour of the scenic drive and followed it along the way.
Our first and only hike of the day was a short one, just .5 miles roundtrip, to Mesa Arch. We could see Washerwoman Arch from there as well.
The end of one fork in the road was Grand View Point, which was amazing. The other end was Upheaval Dome, which we didn’t see because we would have had to hike 2 miles and it was near sunset by that time.
The setting sun made for some interesting views along the road as we drove back out of the park. One side of the road was bathed in raking light, while the other was in shadow and desaturated of color. It was hard taking pictures of the latter side, but it sure was beautiful to observe.
We found a good spot to stop and watch the sunset in the park, but we decided that we were too tired to stay and ended up returning to Moab. Instead, we ran errands, packed, and ate dinner. Lame, we know.
Tomorrow, we leave Utah and head to Arizona, by way of the Navajo Nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment