Sunday in Moab

A pretty big day today, it started out with quite a lot of rain. At home, this would have shut the trails down for a week or more until they could be used without damaging them again. Here, on the other hand, we just need to wait until the rain stops and everything is about ready to go. Add a little wind and sun, everything will dry up in a few hours. 

We headed out to Dead Horse state park to ride the mountain bike trail there, also our first for this trip. It was raining pretty hard on the way there, as we climbed 2000ft to get up to the park. I knew the trail would probably be a no-go, but hoped we could waste enough time in the park until the rain passed. The ranger at the pay booth told us "I really don't think you'll be able to see much today" which, as the only thing in this park is a large overlook, posed a problem. We started driving around on some jeep roads instead and found a neat campground that was really remote, as well as a road that wound down into the canyon.

This was one of the campsites at the remote campground. It was way out on a point, with cliff exposure only about 50ft on one side.

We headed on down the road from the remote campsites, and the road got a lot more interesting. 

Here is where I decided to turn around. The truck would have fit through, but the back side of this had some pretty nasty rocks that were at the same time: wet, muddy and steep. Sliding off to either side was probably body damage. It created a point of no return and I didn't know where the road went, otherwise I'd just drive all the way through. Oh well, it was fun anyway.

Heading back out of the park, as it was still raining. We decided to do something else and come back later.

Our thing to do while waiting on the rain was a drive though the La Sal mountains which are visible from about anywhere near Moab. They are probably about 15-20 miles outside town. Not surprisingly, while it's warm and raining in the valley (4000ft) just 15 miles away, it's below freezing and snowing hard up here (8000ft-10000ft).

We then headed back to Dead Horse Point again to check out the overlook. It was pretty neat and had a huge view all the way around.

The last thing of the day which was supposed to be the first, the mountain bike trail. We had a great time and this was a fantastic trail. Lots of flow and not too much climbing.

Out to the Dead Horse overlook to catch a sunset and make some supper.