Utah - Part 2

Welcome to Utah...again. So the last post was sort of a quick overview of most of the trip. The beginning starts at a climbing area called Joe's Valley. It is in coal mining country and very close to the mine where the miners lost their lives recently. They also pump natural gas here as well.

We only climbed here a little bit and then decided to leave for Moab, because Kim really wanted to go to Arches National Park to see Delicate Arch. We rolled into Moab on a Saturday and went to Arches first thing. We walked out to Landscape Arch to get a feel for the park and because it will most likely not be an arch for much longer.

The hike out to Delicate Arch was really hot, takes about 45 minutes, and it was surprising how many people didn't have water with them. Arches is a beautiful park and worth the visit to Moab, but pay attention to the weather. After taking in the view at Delicate we headed back towards the car and off in the distance it was clearly raining. And rain in the desert means flash floods. Half way back to the car we started getting sprinkles and people were still heading out to the arch with no water, across a wide and exposed expanse of sandstone slabs. Crazy.

I said earlier that we rolled into Moab on a Saturday. Well never do that unless you either have hotel reservations or you don't mind staying at the RV park. It also rained and rained hard for the next several hours - which all of the locals working at Pasta Jay's wanted to go outside and watch. Coming from Portland we were impressed by the ferocity of the run off, but not by the rain itself.