Canyonlands and Arches National Park

Sunset at Green River Overlook: if you don't know click on photo to
enlarge!

Grand View Point Overlook: looking south towards the
confluence, notice the needles and white rim.

Canyonlands (Island in the sky area) is a short 30 mile drive from Moab. We left hoping to grab one of the limited camp spots, they are available on a first come first serve basis. We were in luck and set up at the campsite before a short ride then walk to the spectacular Mesa Arch. Symi promptly climbed on top of the arch and had her photo taken. What her parents didn't realise was that there was a 1000ft cliff straight behind it!! That afternoon we also walked up to a Puebloan grainery before heading back to camp. We promptly meet our neighbours who were from Pleasant Grove Utah, two families with 11 children who were off to ride the 100 mile White Rim Trail over the following four days. They are obviously very adventurous, Paul one of the dads shared some great tips for some of the places we are

Walking down the Gooseberry Trail.

planning to visit. Looking after and organising so many kids seemed challenging to us! The next day, Tuesday, we went to the upheaval dome. The origin of the dome is uncertain, the theory is it is either from a meteorite or an uplift of old salt deposits. Wednesday we decided to walk down to the white rim. After a look at the view towards the Green and Colorado River confluence at Grand View Point we set off down the Gooseberry trail. It was 1400 ft down and 2.7 miles to the rim. The trail basically goes off the side of a cliff and was very steep and rough. There were a couple of spots where we kept a close eye on Symi, falling was not a

Relaxing at the White Rim, notice the thick layer of white rock

healthy option. Eventually the trail flattened and followed a wash out to the rim. From above the white part of the rim looks like a thin crust. At the rim we realised it was a 20m layer of sandstone! Symi somehow conned Rob into a back massage at the bottom, we were not sure how this was going to help her energy levels for the strenuous climb back up. We all eventually found some energy to start the climb and it was slow and steady on the way up. Impressively 90 minutes of climbing saw us back at the RV. It was a great walk, amazingly we saw nobody the whole time. After three nights it was time to head back to

View at White Rim, worth the descent.

Moab via the Dead Horse State Park for a ride. We woke early to catch the famous sunrise at Mesa Arch. The sun rises over the LaSal mountains, hits the slope under the arch lighting up the arch. Famous it is and we arrived to find the area just in front of the arch packed with photographers. An interesting interpretation of the notice to stand back from the arch at sunrise. While you can get a great photo don't come   
here for sunrise expecting any great ambiance.

Sunrise Mesa Arch

Symi taking great delight in riding a dragster! She played with our neighbours
from Utah, who had four kids and one on the way. They had a nice 1970s Airstream
which can be seen in the background.

Arrival back in town coincided with the annual Moab jeep festival. 'Jeep man' had come to town on mass. It was like being at the Isle of Mann TT but now it was jeeps. Some of the rigs were massive, check out what parked next to us. It

Jeep scenes at RV park. Check out the length of that trailer
next door! Our RV is 29 feet long.

reminded us of the family in the show Upper Middle Bogan. We discovered that 'jeep man' liked talking cars, fiddling with cars and became distressed at long periods of time without being near a running engine. Overall the atmosphere was fine with noise and behaviour well contained. We wondered if this would be different in Australia.

RV chef at work.

One afternoon we made the trek out to the end of the Arches NP to do the Devil's Garden and primitive trail walk. We had wanted to do the Fiery Furnace walk but you must do this

Rock Fins on the primitive walk

with a ranger by booking. It was booked out until the end of May! The walk started off by looking at Landscape Arch then onto Partition and Navajo Arch. It was then onto the primitive trail that became more challenging with some rock scrambling and exposed walking. The walk goes through many rock fins which are ultimately what arches are formed from. It was a challenging walk in the end and we covered about 13km. Heading back to the car the weather

Storm over the LaSal Mountains

was looking very ominous and we could see it was snowing over the LaSal mountains again. Luckily we arrived back to the car dry completing another amazing walk.

Walking up to Lost Canyon

It was ultimately time to move onwards from Moab, we had an invite to spend Easter with a family in Durango Colorado. On the way we decided to go to the southern 'Needles' part of the Canyonlands NP. Again camping here is on a first come, first served basis so it was an early departure. It was a 30 mile drive from Hwy 191 into the NP. There was some amazing scenery on the way and at one point Fiona suggested let's try and get a classic RV shot. We stopped and a minute later a convoy of about 50 jeeps came past.

Top of Lost Canyon. We walked in from the left and descended
into the Canyon right, awesome.

Experience told us that we would catch them at the NP entry where they would create a long queue

Cactus flowers appearing

while individually paying their entry fee. Our experience was correct! After a wait it was straight to do campground grabbing the last available campsite, we were in luck again. After settling in we decided to walk the Lost Canyon. We set off up the Squaw Canyon then turned into a spectacular  and steep canyon that led up to Lost Canyon. The top of Lost Canyon was surrounded by tall red cliffs, again great scenery and only the occasional walker. We descended into Lost Canyon for the long walk back to the campsite. Near the end we had to go up and over a large rock leading to some amazing views.

The next day we planned to go to the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. The option was either do an 11 mile out and back walk or ride the jeep tracks and do a short walk at the end. The ride was an unknown distance and the jeep tracks were described as some of the most challenging in Utah. The decision was to ride. We casually set off at lunch time, after a few miles we arrived at the Elephant Hill track with its very steep climb and sharp switchbacks. It was mostly a push to the top before a rocky descent, where the

Confluence

jeeps have to reverse between two switchbacks. From the bottom it was great riding through some vertical walled, grass carpeted valleys. We stopped at a trail junction and had some Sushi for lunch. While there a jeep passed going in the direction we were going. Amazingly we caught and overtook the jeep at the end of the Silver Stairs, a rocky

Heading into the one-way track just before the
'great jeep race'.

descent. Fiona and Symi managed to ride the whole of the stairs which was impressive. The jeep eventually caught us helped by two falls in five minutes by Fiona, ouch. Fiona started to worry about our ability to get back to camp feeling the falls were the beginning of fatigue. We pushed on to the end of the track and did the short 1/2 mile walk to the confluence, enjoyed the view and set off for the return journey. Luckily the journey back was shorter as there

Watching jeeps go up Elephant Hill

were two one-way sections to the ride, the second one on the return being shorter. Just after going into the one-way section a group of jeeps came up behind us just before a very rocky descent. Deciding MTBs are much quicker we set off before the jeeps arrived. Then started the great challenge, 'Symi how long do you think we can stay ahead of the jeeps for'? Just the thing to distract from the fatigue after what was now 3.5 hours of riding. We managed all the way (4kms) until the return over Elephant Hill. We found a vantage point and watched the jeeps scramble up the highly technical climb. They all wondered where we had got to and were amazed at how long they had taken to catch us! We caught them again at the trailhead while they were pumping up their tyres from 12psi and had a great chat. It was then the few return miles back to camp to finish a five hour, 20+ mile epic ride. That night Symi and Rob climbed the rocks behind the RV to watch the sunset, all the rocks to the east glowed red creating a great end to an amazing day.

Sunset from Squaw Flats camp ground