Moab, Utah: our first really big RZR trip!!!!It started out with a different sort of adventure than we had anticipated. On our way to the sunny and scorching temperatures of the Utah dessert, we ran into some quite nasty weather on I-70 and had a few nail biting moments while pulling the trailer! But we made it to our little cabin in time to set off on the first trail of the trip: Mineral Point!
Mineral Point
Boy it was fun to finally get some good red dirt on our tires! With Jadeyn strapped into his car seat we blazed off through the rocks, Juniper bushes, cactus plants and blue skies! It was a good trail to start on as it wasn't too difficult, but ended up not being that spectacular. It was a good practice run also to learn how to read the maps from an awesome trail book we had. At the end of the trail we continued our RZR tradition of jelly filled donuts and a soda!!! Jadeyn entertained himself by throwing rocks and watching them explode! The view from the overlook was simply amazing! I cant get enough of the deep red rocks that remind me so much of huge bricks of chocolate!!! :) I found a nice sized snake sunning himself on the rocks and made Kevin a little upset by how close I got to it!!
GrandparentsWe arrived back at the cabin around 6pm just in time for Kevin's parents to arrive, unpack and take them out on a quick jaunt before it got too dark to see the trails. We rented a small cabin at Archview Campground and shared the tiny space. Me and Kev tried the top bunk with Jadeyn in the bottom until in the middle of the night: BOOM! he fell off the bottom bunk, so the rest of the time I slept in the bottom bunk with him. The cabin was a great idea and nice to have a shower available with all the dust we were coated with. Cutest thing though was waking up to Jadeyn trying to imitate Grandpa's snoring!!
Spring Canyon Bottom
Our second day brought the real adventures!! Spring Canyon reinforced the reason we bought the RZR: to go deeper into nature than we ever would have been able to before! We wound around through beautiful formations, and sandy river beds until we dropped a couple hundred feet of switchbacks to the top of the canyon.
Then we clung tightly to the side of the cliff wall as the other side dropped vertically 800 feed to the canyon floor! It was spectacular, thrilling and yes, we held on tightly to Jadeyn! Looking over the edge was a little dizzying as all the depth perception was in reds and browns. Not many people get to adventure this far out!On our way down to the floor of the canyon, we were met with a few more take your breath away corners as we squeezed through tight spaces, towering overhangs, and switchbacks. Every corner we turned brought out our cameras!!
Hey Joe Canyon!
We continued on to Hey Joe Canyon Trail with followed the Green River tightly. It was our first "moderate" trail and we discovered what exactly that meant! Tight spaces, very few places to pass another vehicle or to turn around and a few places where we got out to examine exactly what line to pick in the rocks!! It was a beautiful nice trail with some tricky spots thrown in for good measure. Kevin is sure amazing with what he is able to get the RZR over! Pretty impressive!
We stopped by the river for lunch. Jadeyn and I pulled off our shoes and socks to dip our feet in the sand, uh, I mean mud!! It was pure silt mud that sucked you in fast and was not easy to wash off! but we had fun! As we looked around the shore of the river, we noticed that a lot of the area had been grazed down pretty deep and there were unusual droppings. We wondered a bit about it, but soon found our answer: five young big horn sheep romping through the brush! On the way back, Darlene drove and gave us all a little April Fool's joke... a nice juicy cow pie splattered all up the side of the RZR and all over Gordon!
Gemini Bridges Trail
Two beautifully mirrored HUGE arches met us at our destination at Gemini Bridges. Steep drop offs were all around us as we walked over the fins to get a better look over the edges. This was a great trail, but not as amazing as the advice we got from some fellow travelers to take the trail that leads to the bottom of the arches, more on that later!
Bull Canyon Trail
This trail was my very favorite: it had a bit of everything: sandy washed out river bottoms to fishtail in, tricky rocky climbs, towering rock features, and gorgeous blue skies to accent to red rock!Metal Masher!!!
No...don't panic, we didn't attempt the famous Metal Masher, but we did have to stop by and take a few pictures. You'd seriously have to be crazy to try this, either that, or not care about your vehicle!!
Tusher Tunnel
This short hike invited us into the shockingly cool caves of Tusher Tunnel. Three triangular shaped tunnels, the longest being about 200 feet long. Passing through the other end of the tunnel, the view opened up to a wide expanse of slick rock formations.
Hurrah Pass Trail & Chicken Corners
As we started down Hurrah Pass Canyon, we saw campers, hikers, mountain bikers, and rock climbers galore. We went deeper in and saw fewer and fewer people. When we finally got to the trailhead, we were practically all alone.
The diversity of the landscape was incredible. The chiseled cliffs soon gave way to "pillow rocks," large ballooning boulders nestled on top of cliffs and occasionally tumbling down into mighty piles. Slick rock appeared as giant cow pies. Pillars of stacked rocks teetered above us.
Chicken Corners
When we reached the summit of Hurrah Pass (a whopping 4,780 feet high!! :) we had a 360 view of an amazing landscape. Wow! Then came the thrill of "Chicken Corners," and we found out how this trail got its name. Clinging to the cliff edge, we twisted and turned 90 degree angles or more as we negotiated blind corners overlooking a quite steep and non-inviting drop off. It was sweet!! Once through the corners, we wound around beautiful landscape always overlooking the Colorado River. The final destination was at the end of the trail with a perfect view of the famous Thelma and Louise jumping point!!!
The Dreaded Drive Home
We had a fantastic trip, but it wasn't over yet: we still had to make our way home and the weather wasn't going to make it easy. Leaving 85 degree weather, we reached complete white-out conditions in a few short hours. I-70 was a disaster with a late spring storm, we were towing a trailer in heavy snow, and our windshield wipers decided to stop functioning requiring us to pull over every few miles in very bad road conditions for me to jump out and scrape the ice off trying to avoid the oncoming traffic!
It was the scariest drive we have ever had. Even at 3 to 5 miles per hour we had trouble stopping as the trailer just kept pushing us along. Around Frisco we decided that we had had enough and would call it good at the next exit which was 5 miles away. 90 minutes later, passing at least 15 accidents on our side of the road and quite a few more than that on the opposite side of the road, we creeped to our exit. Thankfully I had called ahead and made reservations so we were able to get a room. They closed I-70 at that exit so everyone was scrambling for lodging! We were so grateful to have made it off the road safely and mostly intact, all except our nerves!! (Oh the adventure wasn't over yet: room across the hall had a nice domestic violence episode between some drunk college kids, yelling, breaking things, a guy crashing against a wall and getting knocked out and we had front row seats to it all through our peep-hole!! Cops finally came and took a report and the ambulance checked out the guy from 11:30 to 12:30am!!!)
All in all, this was a fantastic trip, one we plan to repeat!!! (all except for the snow!!!)
When we reached the summit of Hurrah Pass (a whopping 4,780 feet high!! :) we had a 360 view of an amazing landscape. Wow! Then came the thrill of "Chicken Corners," and we found out how this trail got its name. Clinging to the cliff edge, we twisted and turned 90 degree angles or more as we negotiated blind corners overlooking a quite steep and non-inviting drop off. It was sweet!! Once through the corners, we wound around beautiful landscape always overlooking the Colorado River. The final destination was at the end of the trail with a perfect view of the famous Thelma and Louise jumping point!!!
The Dreaded Drive Home
We had a fantastic trip, but it wasn't over yet: we still had to make our way home and the weather wasn't going to make it easy. Leaving 85 degree weather, we reached complete white-out conditions in a few short hours. I-70 was a disaster with a late spring storm, we were towing a trailer in heavy snow, and our windshield wipers decided to stop functioning requiring us to pull over every few miles in very bad road conditions for me to jump out and scrape the ice off trying to avoid the oncoming traffic!
It was the scariest drive we have ever had. Even at 3 to 5 miles per hour we had trouble stopping as the trailer just kept pushing us along. Around Frisco we decided that we had had enough and would call it good at the next exit which was 5 miles away. 90 minutes later, passing at least 15 accidents on our side of the road and quite a few more than that on the opposite side of the road, we creeped to our exit. Thankfully I had called ahead and made reservations so we were able to get a room. They closed I-70 at that exit so everyone was scrambling for lodging! We were so grateful to have made it off the road safely and mostly intact, all except our nerves!! (Oh the adventure wasn't over yet: room across the hall had a nice domestic violence episode between some drunk college kids, yelling, breaking things, a guy crashing against a wall and getting knocked out and we had front row seats to it all through our peep-hole!! Cops finally came and took a report and the ambulance checked out the guy from 11:30 to 12:30am!!!)
All in all, this was a fantastic trip, one we plan to repeat!!! (all except for the snow!!!)
