Day 25, part II: Rapid Relief from the Heat

Moab, Utah was a complete surprise. We planned to stay there over night and use it as a base for a trip to Arches National Park (see previous entry), but when we got into town, we realized that it was a destination unto itself. Moab is an adventure junkie’s dream town. It’s the place where mountain biking was born, and the town’s economy thrives on tourists coming there to hike, bike, rock climb, off-road in Jeeps, and raft the Colorado River.

When we found out that Ellie was old enough to go on some of the rafting trips, we made a quick change of plans and decided to hit the river. We awoke before dawn to find an outfitter that had some open spaces, and we got lucky. The blistering morning heat convinced us that it was the right decision. It was 87 degrees at 7am, and we needed to cool off.

After a quick hike at Arches National Park, we changed into our water clothes and boarded a bus that would take us 45 minutes up-river. Nora and Ellie were both a little bit anxious.

There were 10 people, plus our guide, in our raft. One family was from France, and the other family was from Germany. This made for some interesting sign-language and not much conversation. The guide broke the ice shortly after we started floating on the river by standing up and doing a back flip into the river. The rest of us soon followed, sans back flips, of course.

This trip was a ‘family’ trip and so was on a relatively calm section of the Colorado. Fantastic scenery. No heavy whitewater, but there were some very fun rapids. Nora and Ellie each got a chance to swim in the rapids, assisted by Eric.

At one point, the guide pointed out a cliff on the river bank that was a safe spot from which to jump into the river. Eric was one of two brave souls who decided to try it.

And at that point, my camera batteries ran out. You’ll have to take my word for it that he did a perfect, Olympic-caliber jump.

This was one of those things that we had never planned on doing this trip, but it made for a very memorable day for all of us. I admit, we are now dying to try “real” whitewater rafting. It’s something to look forward to in the future.

Tomorrow we’re off to Denver … will update when we can.

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Days 23, 24 and 25: Utah Rocks!

Despite the fact that Jello (specifically, green jello) is the Official State Snack, Utah is a beautiful and impressive place, with some of the most breathtaking scenery we’ve experienced.  Utah has more National Parks (5) than any state other than California. We explored 4 of them. Thankfully, they are all different, and we never got bored.  Each day we hiked for a couple of hours, and often attended a Ranger Talk.  The geology of each is very different, and we all learned a lot — especially the girls, who had to really listen and explore each park to earn their coveted Junior Ranger badges. It should pay off down the road when the girls take Earth Science in school.

Zion National Park, our first stop, is a couple of hours from Las Vegas, and is the westernmost park in Utah.  The park features towering sandstone walls that surround you as you walk in the valley.  It reminded us a lot of Yosemite, though the rock here is red, instead of the gray granite of the California park.

There, we hiked up to the Emerald Pools, and stood behind a waterfall created by those pools.  It was a great hike, and we all got our feet submerged in the red mud of Zion.

Bryce Canyon is about 75 miles from Zion.  We spent the night in a small town outside the park, in a very cute but well-appointed little cabin situated on a farm.  The girls were thrilled to see the farm’s kitten, buffalo, llamas and horses.  We were awakened by roosters in the morning.

Bryce Canyon amazed us with it’s intricately shaped “hoodoos” (yes, that’s the official term) and brilliant colors.

We took a morning hike among the hoodoos and marveled at the weirdness.  The girls insisted that it looked like ‘Tatooine’ from Star Wars.

Driving to our next stop that day, we passed through Capitol Reef National Park.  Though we didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy the park, it is a place that I’d love to spend more time exploring.  Though the park does feature cool geologic formations, the highlights this day were the wildlife, the abundant orchards that have been flourishing here for over 100 years, and the petroglyphs — ancient symbols carved high into the rock walls by native people who lived here over 1,000 years ago.

On Monday, we had an abbreviated visit to Arches National Park, just outside Moab, Utah.  The sandstone in this area has a tendency to erode into walls that feature ‘windows’ and ‘arches’, and it makes for a dramatic landscape.  I’ll write a separate post on our day in Moab later, but we started the morning with a short hike up to the famous Double Arch, that evidently appeared in one of the Indiana Jones movies.  It was blistering hot in Moab, and the most scenic arches were a 3 hour hike away, so we decided to keep our visit short.

I had expected everyone to be tired of National Parks by this point, but even tonight Nora asked when we were going to visit another.  We don’t have any more planned for this trip, but we do intend to take time this year to explore some of the many National Parks we have in New England.

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