Went down to Moab with the family for one last use of the tent trailer for the year and we had a great time. I wont write too much here but for explaining the pictures.
This weekend was UEA break (Utah Education Association) meaning my oldest was out of school for Thursday and Friday, it also means that everyone and their dog was headed to Moab like us. We got there wed night and while I was expecting madness it wasn’t so bad, though our preferred campground of Sand Flats was full save one site that would NOT fit our trailer exactly one space down from our site last year, which was epic.
Plan b was to head out to Willow Springs Rd about 10 miles north of town, a little patch of BLM land that has housed me and my friends on many adventures. And you know what? it wasn’t bad at all.
Sure there were lots of people there, and yeah there was no bathroom or easy access to water but it was still less dense than sand flats, we had a great cassette toilet in the trailer I had learned didn’t suck to use, and we had 30 gallons of fresh water in the trailer and in cans. This coupled with a generator, a thermostat controlled heater and a water heater... I think we will be just fine out here.
As a bonus to this site, there was a little rock separating camp sites that the kids loved to climb on with their fat dad.
Joining us was my wife’s parents whom are really great people. You may recognize Joe here from some of the other adventures I’ve posted.
Seems like every time we use trailer we have problems; broken lift cable, bad battery, worn out tires, broken t-stat...etc. I suppose that’s just the consequence of using something as a home in inhospitible places, built with as cheap of materials as possible...i.e. most RV’s and trailers...and this time ia no exception. After we got popped up and ready to settle in, I turned on the water pump to fill the hot water heater, but something sounded wrong and an inspection of the bottom of the trailer revealed a leak. I pulled off the valence to get to the pump to discover that the flex fitting for the exterior shower had called it quits and was spraying water all over the interior of the trailer under the table. Neat! Because its an integrated system, any leak leak means no use of any system water even though we rarely use the outside shower. Scrapping together what materials I had on hand I found a spare fitting to fit on the hose end, and then capped it with a schrader valve cap and a hose clamp. amazing it worked the entire time. I suspect some manual shutoff petcocks will be going in to isolate every component separately come spring. Sorry for the tangent. Back to the pretty pictures.
Thursday we decided to drive strait from our spot on willow springs road which continues on as a backcountry way into Arches NP. It was a pretty mild trail, but it sure gave my mother in law a heart attack, as she didn’t even like the graded road to the site. Its what I would call an adventurous Subaru level trail.
Then, just as we got to balanced rock, we turned north again onto “4 wheel drive road” to go to eye of the whale arch, a favorite from last time. This trail scraped my hitch (cause I was dumb) and scared the ever loving crap out of my wife and her mom on an extremely cambered sandy corner that probably tipped us to high 20's low 30's. It got my heart going even. After or hike and on our way out, at the start of the trail I met a couple of guys in an outback, I stopped and asked them if they had been out this was before (making sure they knew what they were getting into).
“No, bad idea?”
“Depends, whats your tolerance for body damage?”
“Its a rental.”
“Oh, then go for it.”
Hopefully I didn’t kill anyone, they should be fine and worse case its a 3 mile walk back to civilization and a great story for their insurance agent. My mother in law was very disappointed I encouraged them. Live a little, why not?
Thehike on this road is write of the whale arch and I like it because no one is ever there, so it was all worth it.
Plus the kids had fun running around and we had a decent, if cold, time.
After than it was a quick lunch at the picnic grounds at balanced rock.
Then it was onto the crowd favorite from last year, and what I’ve come to know as “arches playplace” Sand Dune Arch. A .3 mile hike between some fins thats filled with beach quality sand.
Shoes off and time for “sand angles”. Its the place to be if you have kids and for good reasons. The nice thing is that the sun heats the sand in spots and leaves it cool in others owing to the narrowness of the fins, so there is always a happy medium somewhere.
Joe was his typical self here, making friends in the parking lot from Melbourne and other such locals. Arches is FULL of international visitors and whenever I go to a place like this I always try and put myself in their shoes, to see it from a fresh set of eyes...its hard to do but the wonder is still there for me. Arches is a neat place.
This is double arch, our next and final stop in arches for the day. Amazing stuff. Its a short hike into the arch and the views are pretty great.
You can get right up in the arch and crawl around (obviously) which the kids loved, and I didn’t (those kids of mine are crazy bold)
After this it was a quick stop at the visitors center for a souvenir (you’ll see, MTDRIFT) and for my kids to become Jr. Rangers.
My oldest is now a Jr. Ranger in 4 parks (Capitol Reef, Arches, Vermilion cliffs, and Yellowstone). The ranger on station was not pleased we did it at closing time but whateves. Filled up with some water and back to camp for dinner.
Hearty summer stew, Irish sodabread and the evenings entertainment. The sky out here does not suck.
The next morning after, shockingly, we all slept through the night until 8 (seriously its a miracle) we enjoyed some french toast for breakfast and hung around camp some more. When in Yellowstone I asked the kids what their favorite thing was and they said “playing at camp”. Yeah, its what the kids love to do.
It feels nice to not have an agenda or be in a hurry of anykind.
Today’s plan, once we get around to it, is canyonlands. My wife has never been there and neither have I (at least to the normal parts of the park) so we went.
Crazy hair, meet crazy hair.
Park number 5 for her Jr. Ranger collection
We then decided on going to the end of the park on top of the Island in the Sky and out to a lookout point. I’ve seen the island from below, but never from the top.
It was an amazing view and probably better than the ones you can actually see from white crack (lower third right in the picture). We then hit the actual trail and I started freaking out.
Views, yes, cliffs? Also yes.
The entire trail is on the exposed edge of a 900 foot cliff. And while it was fun at first....
...my dadsenses kicked in and I was not having a good time knowing that my 3 year old is both fearless and disobedient/defiant and I forced my wife to turn around with me and the kids in tow to reduce my heart attack risk. I don’t like edges and if you are a father you know how protective you can get with your kids around things you perceive as dangerous, especially if said kids run away when you say “NO! STOP!”.
Still, they had fun playing on the rocks away from the edge and hunting lizards.
Lunch, nap and time to move on.
Our next stop was the infamous mesa arch, a short .5 mile hike and...
...meh. It was alright I guess, and I suppose with the right light it would have been something but the pictures over-hyped the sensation. My 3 year olds favorite part? Me taking her to the overhang we’re sitting on and showing her how dangerous the drop was (about 800 feet). “Danger danger!”
“Show me the danger danger again!” GUH!
She also had fun playing on the rocks...are you sensing a pattern?
My kids LOVE climbing on rocks.
Its getting late and we’ve got hotdogs to cook so we head back, just one more stop. I take the family to the switchbacks of the shafer trail.
Just for them to get a sense of it. Had we had more time, we would have driven it and out potash road back to camp, but you can see where the light was already. Sidenote; in the visitors center I talked to an east coaster about the park in detail (he liked to talk) and I suggested he drive these in his 2 wheel drive rental. His was looked nervous leaving the parking lot as he told me they were going for it. I hope I didn’t kill anyone. I’m getting into that habit.
Hotdogs and mallows around the campfire and off to bed for the last night. Good times. Wish I could say we slept as good as the first night, but this night and the one before weren’t great. oh well.
Packed up in the morning we head into town, empty the toiler (always way less bad than Im expecting), play at the music park and get something to eat before braving the going home crowds that have the streets backed up from the river to the bikes shops (seriously, it was crazy).
one last gas in Green river and home. Fun trip, 10/10 would do again. Also, I lied about me not talking a lot. Sorry.