Three Moab Parks

We spent the last week of September in Moab, a small town/big playground in southeastern Utah. It was still too hot for comfortable hiking and dry camping and I think October would have been better.

The BLM lands around Moab have developed campgrounds (but without hookups) and are not free. We stayed at Ken’s Lake because it was the only one I could make a reservation at in advance and knew that Moab is popular and crowded.

It’s popular for good reason. There are two National Parks – Arches and Canyonlands. But I think most visitors are there for the world-famous mountain biking and jeep trails.

Arches National Park

We spent most of our afternoons in Arches, which requires timed entry reservations. Numerous short trails along the main road take you up close to one or two arches. The exception is Devil’s Garden, an~8 mile hike with 8 arches!

There are 2,000 named arches in the park, the densest concentration in the world. And there are additional arches in the surrounding area, too. They were sculpted by an unstable underground salt bed (from the sea that was once here) and 100 million years of extreme temperatures and erosion.

Canyonlands National Park

Our favorite arch was actually located at Canyonlands National Park because of the view beneath/behind it!

The closest area of Canyonlands National Park to Moab is the Island in the Sky district. The name Island in the Sky refers to the broad mesa of land surrounded by two canyons created by the Green and Colorado Rivers. The views from overlooks are just simply unbelievable.

At some point, Michael saw a photo of the Shafter Trail at Canyonlands and really wanted to drive down into the canyon. So, instead of taking the easy 45-minute way back to Moab, we took the Shafter Trail and Potash “roads”, if you want to call them that. It ended up taking us 3.5 hours to get to Moab and was definitely an adventure we will always remember.

The highlight of Potash Road was the part that followed along the Colorado River.

Dead Horse Point State Park

Our last Moab adventure was mountain biking at Dead Horse Point State Park. This amazing Utah SP is right next to Canyonlands Island of the Sky and has even better views of the Colorado River, including the gooseneck that we drove next to on Potash Road.

Dead Horse Point has an awesome beginner/immediate network of mountain biking trails. Originally, we planned to do a 14-mile loop but after drinking all our water and being exhausted from the “beginner” half, we decided to quit while ahead.

We had a great week, and even with Michael taking a couple of days off work, barely scratched the surface of things we’d like to do in this area.

Next up is a week in southwest Colorado!