Our 12 Days of Moab

Not only was Moab on my mind for the past few months, it was on my travel itinerary.

Here's a few photos from 12 Days of Moab - Malgesini-style, taken during our recent trip to the beautiful southeastern Utah town that seems to keep drawing us back.

While John took his early morning jaunt to Slickrock Bike Trial, I headed out with my camera and took photos - a number of times at Arches National Park. And being there as long as we were, we had a chance to do mega-exploring on our ATV.

Practically a backroads Bible, an ATV trail book written by Charles A. Wells was my constant companion while riding.

When we'd head out to a trailhead and ride, usually it was in total solitude. With the exception of our ride out Potash Road to the point where Thelma and Louise drove their car off the cliff, we never ran into a soul while riding. And I gotta tell ya, Charles rates each trail based on difficulty and he does a great job in describing how to get to the trailhead, what to expect and mileage and GPS readings - very thorough and quite useful.

We experienced some cool stuff, including an old mining encampment, climbing into a cave at Lone Rock and eating lunch, riding across dozens of water crossings on Onion Creek and rip-snorting through the red dirt sand dunes at White Wash Sand Dunes.

Of course we'd return back to the room with socks with rings of red on them that required laundry pre-treatment - a small price to pay for a grand time in the land of red dirt and rocks.

For a slide show of photos, click here

Moab on my mind

That's John on the Slickrock Trail. Pretty much, when we're in Moab, he lives and breaths Slickrock.

That's Double Arch at Arches National Park. See the previous blog entry for my memorable experience, which I lived to tell about.

Canyoneering in Arches was an exhilarating experience. After scrambling and climbing upward, we reached the top of a mesa that looked like a sea of slickrock. Peering over the edges, soon our sight wouldn't be limited.

We put on our gear and rappelled down to the next tier. The rappels grew increasing longer, culminating in a 100 foot drop. Wow.

The heart-pumping experience was accentuated by the natural beauty of the red sandstone, the rock structures of Arches and the La Sal Mountains in the distance.

This adventure was like having a back-stage pass to Arches National Park.

Those off-highway vehicles are called "Tom-cars." We went on guided trips in the fun little rigs on a few occasions. Then several years ago, for some reason, the outfitter we went through was unable to do the trips anymore.

They definitely got me hooked on off-road exploration in Moab.

Last summer we bought an ATV before our trek to Moab. Once in town, we checked in (I looked through some booklets that were in the hotel lobby - in search of coupons). We then headed to the visitor's center and found a great ATV trail guide (and I got a discount!)

The book is AWESOME and will definitely get lots of use by us. It gives great descriptions, including how to get there, mileage checkpoints, photos and rates the trail on level of difficulty. We had a great time riding in about 9 miles to Gemini Bridge. The ride included a sky-high view of the highway below as we winded out way back into the red rock.

Another ride I particularly enjoyed, we ended up only going part way. Initially, we planned to ride out to an arch, but when we came upon the red sand dunes (and the sky looked a little ominous), we played around in the dunes. It was a blast. Maybe next time we'll make it out to the arch.

Buying an ATV was one of the best purchases John and I have made. The owner's manual says it's not a toy, but whatever, it's our toy. Oh, I definitely respect it's power, but face it, anything that brings a giant smile to my face like that falls into the toy category.

Hit the trail

That's my husband, John. We hit the highway to find a place to ride our ATV last weekend.

We got a map from the visitor's center and attempted to follow it, but in small print it said, "This map was designed to show general locations of OHV recreation sites in Oregon."

So, when we get stopped for riding illegally, my defense is, "I'm riding in the general location."

We had a great time, but I can't help but become irritated as we drove for miles and miles through public lands that we have to drive so far to ride.

We were the only people riding where we were - although we did see some people on our way out in a meadow. It was peaceful. I deal with people and traffic (yeah we have traffic in Hermiston) all week long, I don't want to deal with a bottleneck of ATVs at some destination riding area.