Moab, Utah Trip

To quote Ferris Buller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Moab is no different. A bunch of us went out for my buddy Kevins bachelor party over Labor Day weekend and it was amazing! We dubbed it "Bro-ab".

Here is what WE did on our trip, but certainly there were some things I thought were amazing and others that were just ok. I’m really big on FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), and I believe that if I’m in Moab, I’m going to attempt to do as many things as I can while I’m there. Example: One guy wanted to go get massages, but I can get a massage anywhere back home, so why waste 2 hours doing something I can do anywhere? Make sense?

Day 1:

We arrived in Grand Junction, Colorado mid-day so we didn’t get to Moab until around dinner. The first night after we got settled in, we raced up to Arches to get some zero light pollution star gazing. I don’t know if you have ever done something like this or been in a zero-light pollution situation, but you can typically even see the milky way in great detail. I would definitely try to do this at least one night. We went probably 15-20min back into the park and just pulled off at one of the trailhead parking lots. Arches National Park is SUPER close to downtown Moab, so you can bounce out there pretty quickly too. I haven't seen the Milkyway like this since Montana, so it is great to see it again.

I heard an interesting theory recently specifically about light pollution blocking the stars at night. The gist of it was that we as humans, since creating electricity and having light pollution, as a result, have increasingly become more jaded to our insignificance in the universe and aren't humbled by space/God as we were previous to electricity. An interesting theory at least to consider.

Day 2:

We rented 4WD CanAm UTVs for some offroading from High Point. I’m not sure if you know, but Moab is a Mecca for Jeepers and Offroad enthusiasts. We did a series of easy trails, then harder trails. You can get a better idea here, but we basically followed what the rental place suggested. The order we did was Fins and Things, Hells Revenge and then we were going to Chicken Corners but ran out of time.

Instead of Chicken Corners, we decided to take a nice UTV drive down the dirt road through the canyon. It was amazing! Probably my favorite part about the day. You would definitely need a minimum of a Jeep to get to some of the places on the dirt road as there are some very rocky parts. This portion looked very similar to the Grand Canyon and it had the Colorado River flowing through it. Simply stunning. I highly recommend you try to get out there. Basically, keep going down route 145 along the Colorado river Southwest.

That day we went to lunch at the Food Truck Park, which was pretty killer in downtown Moab.

That night we went out hard but got a decent dinner at Posto Rosso. It's in a hotel lobby, but it's a new restaurant and farm-to-table with cleaner food. Probably some of the better food we had on the trip.

Day 3:

We got up early. Some of the guys went skydiving at Sky Dive Moab and said that it was sick! They were both super cool, friendly and they never felt like they were being rushed just to get the jump over with.

Then we left out for a hike at Canyonlands National Park. This park isn’t hit nearly as much as Arches, because it's a 1 ½ hour drive from Moab. The drive out there alone was just ridiculous. Huge stone column mountains of sheer rock, sweeping views, and landscape I can only relate you to as Tatooine. We hit the Needles District of Canyonlands. Island in the Sky is something I wish we had more time to do, but we did a 13-mile hike, in the middle of the day, with a minimal amount of water. Big Mistake. If you going hiking ANYwhere, bring a silly amount because you will use it.

The hike we did for this particular day was Devils Kitchen by way of Chesler Park in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. This was the trail we took. It was late in the day, so we opted to take the quicker more direct route of a Jeep path back to the parking lot. Our day was about 13 miles total between photos, checking out stuff, and a small detour following a dry creekbed.

Day 4:

After a heck of a hike the day before, and pretty much running around non-stop, we welcomed a "chill day". On our last day, we all went floating (tubing) down the Colorado River using Canyonlands by Night & Day Outfitters. They supplied us with a quick safety course, PFD's and tubes, then dropped us off up the river to float back down to the parking lot. The river was a bit chilly from recent rains, but it did the trick of letting us all unwind and relax before flying home the next morning.

Later that evening, after well-needed rehydration and nap, we had a quick bite then headed up to Arches National Park to see Delicate Arch. If you are going to Moab, you have to see some of the arches in Arches National Park. It's almost busy with tourists, but it's worth enduring some typical non-hikers for the views. Delicate Arch is the only free-standing arch in the park. Meaning that is not attached to a larger rock formation.

If you are going out to Moab, Utah, or just in search of hitting some great National Parks, both Arches and Canyonlands are two great ones to visit. We had an amazing time and I'm thankful for all the things we saw, the cool activities we tried, and the nature we witnessed. The trip had some definite high points and it was one of my most memorable trips. It made me miss living out west a bit, but then returning home to luscious green Savannah after being in red clay for 5 days and going to the beach on Tybee Island made me forget that quickly!

Until next time...

Here is a quick video of some of the footage I was able to capture. Most of it was in that amazing valley I was discussing on Day 2.