Blogs from Moab, Utah, United States, North America - page 15

Oct 26, 2008 Arches National Park The beautiful landscape of Southern Utah has been sculpted by forces of nature that have been working on it for millions of years. The result is quiet a beauty to behold. American Southwest which includes the states of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, California, Nevada has a desert landscape which is unique. It has inspired Hollywood film makers over the years who have used this landscape for many a Western. Photographs of John Wayne and others were adorning the walls of some of the hotels I had stayed in during my 1 week trip of this region. John Wayne had, in fact, stayed in a few of these hotels during filming his movies. I started my trip from Salt Lake City. Drove south towards Moab along the scenic route 6. ... read more

What an absolutely fantastic day! I drove along the Colorado River 17 miles south of The Arches National Park entrance in the morning. That road is called Potash Road for the potash and salt mine at the end of it. There are Indian petroglyphs on some of the canyon walls (I didn’t work on any of those images to see if I captured them in the morning light), several arches and fabulous views along the river. While I was photographing at a primitive campground about 5 miles along the drive I struck up a conversation with a couple. They were staying in their RV (dry camping) there and we had a really nice talk. I learned from them that before the potash and salt were mined, uranium was discovered in the area. The train tracks that ... read more

here we are! in the Needles park we put the tent in the middle of the desert for two nights. Only we, the landscapes, the coyotes and the crows! for a while we experienced this illusion of untouched life, than...... read more

“Today was beyond words.” I have been directed to start out the blog with that quote…..then he began babbling and I really don’t know where it went from there. The alarm rang at 6:30 am, and the four of us in the motorhome slept in like a unit. Suddenly it is 7:45 and we are cooking breakfast and getting bikes and gear ready. One particularly proactive gentleman created some lunching snacks. The bike shuttle company was very accommodating and let us arrive late for a shuttle to hazard county, to kokeapelli, to LPS, which links into porcupine rim. We began riding at over 9000 feet, and put in about 30 min of climbing to the summit. From here it was absolutely glorious and unexpected snaky single track that required nary a pedal stroke……except for those trying ... read more

Sunday, September 21, 2008 Moab is famous for its location near Arches National Park and the Colorado River Gorge. It is also famous for mountain biking on “slickrock’ - a hard smooth yellow Navajo sandstone than caps a wide area around the hills overlooking the town. Our mountain bikes made it to Moab chiefly for an opportunity to ride the slickrock. To our dismay the slickrock biking trail is classified as expert with steep ups and downs and intimidating to us flatlanders. So we did an internet and visitors centre search for a milder trail and found the Bar M trail, 9 miles north of town. The second problem was the high temperature - 30 deg C today and too hot to ride anywhere except in an air conditioned truck camper. So we drove back to ... read more