Steamy and running out of steam

Day 20 – Moab, UT

I’m not sure if it is travel fatigue, the heat, having been spoiled by the trip itself, or (most likely) a combination of all of those factors.  But Amy and I had a hard time getting going and keeping moving today.  While yesterday was all about Arches, today was day one for exploring Moab’s other national park: Canyonlands.  Unfortunately, yesterday’s energy and enthusiasm did not follow us.

While Arches is located north and east of Moab, Canyonlands is situated west and south.  The park is separated into three distinct sections.  The northern part of the park is called “Island in the Sky”.  To its south and east, and separated by the Colorado River, is the “Needles” district.  To Island”s south and west, and separated by the green River, is the “Maze” district.  The three points meet at the confluence of the two rivers, with the new, larger Colorado River serving as the boundary between The Needles and the Maze. (If that is hard to picture, think of the flux capacitor from Back to the Future; same basic shape.  Speaking of Back to the Future, we saw a guy driving a Delorian the other day.  It was awesome.)

Today’s plan called for an exploration of the Island in the Sky region, with tomorrow’s agenda leading us to the Needles.  The Maze has only some gravel roads, necessitating a 4x4 vehicle, and should only be explored with someone knowledgeable about the area, so it is not part of our plans.  (Remember the movie 127 Hours?  That story, which is true, took place just outside of the park boundaries near The Maze.  Enough said.)

Island in the Sky is the closest part of the park to our campsite, but it took us a while before we got moving.  First, the wind/dust/lightening storm we had last night was pretty intense, so it took us both a while to fall asleep.  Then, although the bathrooms here are very clean, there are also very few of them, so we had to do some waiting in line.  We finally did get going and made it to the park.  We checked in with the Rangers and finalized our plans.  We were going to follow all of the paved roads in the park, which resemble an upside down Y, stopping at each overlook and doing each hike of less than 4 miles.  Doing another long hike didn’t sound like fun to either of us, so we thought the shorter hikes would break things up more.  After the hiking, we were going to take a short bike ride on the world famous White Rim Trail.

Ruins on the top of Aztec Butte, with the canyons in
the distance.

Our first stop was at Aztec Butte.  What is a butte you ask?  Well a butte is basically a mesa.  What is a mesa?  Well, that is an area of land that is elevated from the surrounding terrain, usually separated by steep sides, and containing a flat top.  A butte is a mesa that has eroded so that the flat top is relatively small.  According to some very in-depth 15 second research I did about this on the Interwebs (a complex series of tubes), ranchers used to say that if you could graze cattle on it, it was a mesa.  If not, it was a butte. Nice image.  However my question would have been, “How do the cows get up there?”.  But that’s neither here nor there.  By now you must be wondering, “Wait, that sounds like a plateau to me.  What’s the difference between a plateau and a mesa?”.  Let me tell you.  Again, according to my crack research, plateaus are much larger and need only have one side elevated from the surrounding terrain.  All sides on a mesa must be elevated.  Also, mesa means “table” in Spanish and plateau doesn’t.

So anyways, we hiked up to the top of Aztec Butte, the site of some ruins from early Aztec settlers (a set of 4-5 granaries used for storage).   Inside Canyonlands, you can find ruins from both the Aztec and Anassazi, as well as cowboy “ghost” camps and leftover relics from the uranium exploration of the 1940’s and 1950’s.  It was a nice hike with good views of Whale rock (our next hike) and the canyons created by the Green River.  This hike was a little over 2 miles round trip and involved some fairly intense scrambling up the slickrock, which we are both getting quite good at.

The climb to the top of Whale Rock.

The next hike was also an uphill/downhill scramble over slickrock that led to the top of Whale Rock.  Total distance for this hike was about a mile and a half, and featured the same views as Aztec Butte, with the new added view of Upheaval Dome, which was our next hike.

Our third hike of the day, also a two miler, was to two different lookout spots on the rim Upheaval Dome.  With the word “dome” in tits name, you would expect it to go up, but instead, it resembles the crater of a volcano.  Inside are numerous peaks, colored green by the iodine in the soil.  There is some debate about the origin of Upheaval Dome, with two main theories being the most widely accepted.  The first is that it is the site of a 1/3 mile diameter meteor impact some 60 million years ago.  The other is that salt from a prehistoric ocean accumulated there, was pushed up due to plate tectonics, and then eroded, leaving the crater.

The Upheaval Dome hike was hard and the temperature was getting very hot (near to if not exceeding 100 by this point).  We were getting tired and the scenery, while beautiful and impressive, was not wowing us like Arches did.  To put it one way, we took just under 200 pictures at Arches.  We took about 45 today at Canyonlands.  We had two stops left and high hopes for both.  The first was at Grand Viewpoint, which is at the tip of the island (kind of) at the confluence of the two rivers (which you can’t really see).  It was a very cool sight, but the hike, which was just about two miles round trip, just drained us more.  If you could put these pictures below end to end, it would show you the 360° (actually, since there’s overlap, it’s more like 400°) view from the point.

At this point we were basically done, both literally and figuratively so we decided we would do the last hike and then head back to camp from some pool time before showers and dinner.  While the biking sounded great, the road to get there sounded a little sketchy for our car.  Also, the bike trail is meant for mountain bikes which we do not have.  We both have front suspension on our bikes, so we probably could have handled it, but the energy just wasn’t there.

So our last stop was to Mesa Arch.  While not as impressive as Delicate, Landscape, surprise, or some of the other arches we say yesterday, it was still very cool and offered great views of the mesas, canyons, and La Sal Mountains behind.  It is also neat because it sits on the edge of a cliff, with a 600 foot drop below it.

We headed back to camp, and now Amy is swimming while I am typing this up.  I am off to the pool to cool off, then showers, then Mexican food for dinner.  Hopefully, that will give us some more energy to enjoy the Needles tomorrow.

Part II

So Amy and I never made it in the pool.  She finished reading her book poolside, and came back to camp just as I was finished this.  So we showered up and headed out for dinner.  We went to a place called Miguel’s Baja Café.  It was fantastic.  Instead of ordering dinners, we just got 3 appetizers.  The first was chips with salsa and guacamole.  I have tried many guacamoles in my life, but this was some of the best.  The avocadoes they used were absolutely perfect.  The next was a ceviche.  I’ve had and enjoyed ceviche many times before, but this was the first ceviche I’ve ever had that came with a tomato base instead of a citrus base.  It took a little getting used to, but we both ended up really enjoying it.  The last appetizer was quesadillas with jack cheese, chicken, tomatoes, onions, and poblano peppers.  Quesadillas are pretty much a can’t miss dish and these didn’t disappoint.

Sunset at Dead Horse Point



The "Dead Horse", which gives the canyon its name.

After dinner, we drove out to Dead Horse Point state park, which is directly east across the Colorado River from where we were today in Island of the sky.  The skies had become very overcast, so once again, the colors were dampened.  But it was still a beautiful place to watch it get darker (I’d say “watch the sun go down” but it was behind clouds the whole time, so we didn’t really see it.).  We even got a free light show!  As we stood there, the skies darkened to our east and our west.  The only clear sky was directly above us.  As the clouds got darker, we saw some incredible lightening strikes on both sides.  Eventually a third storm developed to our north, and we were surrounded by lightening that lit up the whole sky.  We drove back with lightening all around us.  Luckily, the rain didn’t hit until we got into the tent.  Now, we’ll be able to go to sleep with the light show playing on outside of our tent.  Maybe it's what we need to get energized a little.