My Detailed Description of my great trip to Moab (part 2)

Ok, due to popular demand...here is the rest of my Moab trip.

After watching the boy get bit by the dog, we drove the 6 hours to Moab. We found a campsite in a canyon about 5 miles out of town and set up camp. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon and right around 100 degrees. We went into Arches National Park, and hiked a few short hikes that afternoon. The Park really is quite a sight to see. The rock just seems to cut right out from the dessert floor into the sky. I'm not sure any of the pictures I took can really do justice to the immense size of the rock formations.

We decided to do the two hardest hikes first thing in the morning, one on Wed. and one on Thursday. We are smart, becuase by 8am it is already near 80 degrees...

So Wed. we went to the Delicate arch, which is about 3 miles roundtrip. It was a moderately challenging hike, with great scenery and the ending payoff at the arch was awesome. I was surprised at how many people did not carry much water with them. John,Chad and myself all wore camelbacks, and carried water bottles with us. I drank all of my water by the time we returned to the car at noon. There were Grandma's there with grandkids who had a half bottle of water with them on the way up....good luck with that!

We hiked our butts off on Wed. We hiked all day up until about 4pm. We then went to the visitor's center, where they played a 15 minute movie about the park. We enjoyed/slept through 2 sittings of the movie as we enjoyed the air conditioning.

On Thursday, we went to Negro Bill's Canyon. (Yes that is the official name of it.) This was a great hike that is outside of the park, and is a must-see if you make it to Moab. It is a 5 mile roundtrip hike, that takes you down by a small river. You have to hike close to the river, and some serious undergrowth, and as you travel further in, there are places where you have to cross the river. Definetly some fun there. At the end of the canyon, is the country's 6th largest natural land bridge. It was awesome! We were dead tired by the time we got there, but it was really worth the hard work. There was a natural spring that cut through the rock, and you can tell that not many people hike back to that arch.

After we crawled back to the car, we decided to spend the afternoon driving to the canyonlands, which are about 15 miles from Moab. We drove into the park and stopped off to enjoy plenty of great veiws, even though our feet and legs were totally tired from all of the hiking.

That night, we decided to drink heavily and go to sleep. (Always a nice option.) I awoke at 4am to rain pounding on my tent. It rained from 4am to 8am that day. We woke up at 8, not ready to pack up yet, so we drove into town. We enjoyed breakfast at the "Pancake Haus!" (yes the exclamation point is needed..) Then we returned to camp, packed up the muddy tents and drove home.

All in all, a great trip. Definelty worth traveling to Moab and enjoying the outdoors.