Road Trip 2016 - Night 4 & 5: Utah
Driving to Utah through Colorado was beautiful and inspiring... at first. Then it became scary then interesting, then boring.
We packed up relatively early, per usual. There was frost on the tent and our fingers were freezing. It was extremely windy all night. It was blowing dust up into the tent. Sand was getting on everything. But thankfully the park had showers and we brought towels luckily ;).
Mountain driving is very inspiring and beautiful. There are several small mining operations along the road. It had snowed the night before as well. It was amazing to see all of the dark pines covered in the bright snow packed in all over the mountains. As the day went on, we got higher and higher. The wind got stronger and stronger. It started to blow the snow across the road, creating white out conditions! It was very scary to not be able to see the road let alone any cars in front of you.
Road To Saint Mary's Glacier
Our itinerary showed us a possible fun stop at the St. Mary's Glacier. We decided to check it out. The road was super fun! Switchbacks up the side of a mountain! The Escape was loving it. There ended up not being anything as the white outs were getting bad as we got up the narrow road.
We finally made it through the mountains and down in elevation, the canyon the road was built through was really interesting. It followed the Colorado river really closely. We drove through several tunnels, guiding us through the large mountains. Once we got passed Grand Junction, things started to get really plain. The next 80 or so miles are extremely unremarkable, to the point where it feels to take about twice as long.
Finally we made it to Moab! The La Salle Mountain range was in view to the East. It was very picturesque driving into Moab, a small adventure touristy city, with large red immovable sand dunes, with large mountains in the background. We stayed at the Sand Flats Recreation Area, the place is like another world. There are 4 x 4 trails (one called Hell's Revenge!!!) that Jeeps and dune buggies drive up! There are miles of mountain biking/hiking trails across the sea of solid rock. We stayed the first night in a nook of one of these monstrous rock dunes right in Loop A. The ground is a rich red sand with shrubs and small brush sparsed throughout. That night we took the dogs up on top of the rock and watched the sun set. We met a cool guy from Washington, in Moab to do a race with his RC dune buggy. He had that with him and the dogs were intrigued, especially Beau.
Beau is a large German Shepard that was roaming around constantly. He would follow you into the restroom, which was just a 6 ft privacy fence surrounding a concrete slab with a plastic toilet over a hole. No door, just a chain to hang across the entrance. He was at our tent around 7 am the next morning, even though Cedar is deaf she alerted us to his large shadow looming in front of our tent.
An older gentleman who was also camping nearby asked if we were staying, his daughter was coming in and our spot was perfect for her camper. We decided that we were going to camp again, but would move to a knew loop to find a more secluded spot, and to get away from Mr. Beau ;).
We drove around the loops, there were so many! A-J, no I though for some reason. We found an open spot on Loop F and set up camp before going out to hike the Slickrock Bike trail. It allows everything but 4 x 4s. We decided to hike the practice loop just to put on a couple miles and see what the area is like, plus the entire trail is almost 10 miles!!!
After we finished our early morning hike, we went to Milt's for some delicious small town diner food. It hit the spot to say the least. The place has been frying up burgers and hand cut fries for over 60 years. After we refueled we drove to the South side of the city and climbed up to see the Hidden Valley.
This hike was really memorable because of how treacherous it was. The trail takes you up the vertical side of a bluff, basically. There are large stones that you weave through that have been broken up over the years and don't offer 100% stability. Due to this, you really had to watch where you were placing your weight while watching the dog to be sure you didn't get pulled over the edge! It was a steep grade, constantly switching back and forth. It seemed like it was taking forever and the pups were not very enthusiastic to be climbing up. It was worth it though. As we finally made it up to the top and we saw the hidden valley. It was like the land before time. It opened up with bluffs on both sides, trees and brush extended to reveal the long valley.
After we got down off the bluff, we drove back into the city and stopped at the Moab Brewery for a brew. It was delicious and exactly what we needed after a long day of sun and hiking!
