At 6am I was up and out the van, ran up the red rocks...and saw an overcast sky. Bummer. What sunrise I did witness was hampered by the grey, left-over rain clouds from the storms that Grand Junction, CO and points east had received overnight.
We sat on a hilltop for 30 minutes, just the two of us, hoping the sun would get high enough to light up the more larger peaks to the west, but nothing happened. I lay on the warm rocks for 30 minutes, but the morning sky never lightened. There was no life from the campers down in the campsite. The sky did not light up enough until well after 7am, after I had washed my hair and cleaned up. There was no spectacular sun rise today.
We did, however, enjoy romping around the rocks for an hour, until well past 8am when I should have taken us to the Negro Bill trail down by the Colorado river. Instead, I drove east on the Sand Flats Road, into the National Forest for ten miles, before I realized that wasn't getting me anywhere, and I was leting the day get hotter and wasting time.
After a quick stop in town at the Barkery, a store for and about dogs where I chatted with the friendly store owner, I was off for the Negro Bill trail off the Colorado River. The trailhead was well-marked...and the parking lot was full. This was clearly a popular four-mile hike to a natural bridge. I chose this for the stream along the way.
On a cooler day this would be a great hike, passing willows, cottonwoods and sagebrush. But at 10:50am when we started it was already in the upper 80s and there were plenty of exposed sections along the way.
Sadie's paws were getting burned by the hot red sand. She yelped a few times and pulled on her leash. And then I realized the poor girl's paws were getting burned. I let her off-leash so that she could run ahead of me to the shaded parts along the way. Her fur was hot, too. Even I was getting parched, feeling the spit in my mouth dry on contact with the air. This was hot!
I chose instead to take Sadie through the creek to keep her cool. This slowed us down a bit as Sadie does not like deep water, but in most places the water was no more than calf-high. That is already too deep for her. Small fish, tadpoles and an interesting blue-green incandescent crayfish made the Negro Bill creek its home.
I enjoyed wading through the creek in my Tevas but being in the creek also made us miss the faint trail sign taking hikers across the creek and into the side canyon. Instead we stayed on a smaller trail to another creek that soon stopped trickling. I was hot, stopped an hour into the hike when we should have been at the natural bridge, and rested with Sadie under the shade of a juniper tree. I was ready to abort the trail. My water had run low.
But the headstrong in me said to return to the main trail and find that elusive turn-off. It wasn't that hard to miss, so we continued up this exposed section and soon found the sand arch. And when we arrived we found four other people there resting in the shade, two were a couple from outside St Paul MN with whom I chatted with for an hour!
Bill and Kim had left their Minnesota home 1 July. They were on a month-long roadtrip with their Toyota Tundra and pop-up camper which they really like. They will travel all over southern Utah, see Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, and camp out at Valley of the Gods in Nevada before turning south toward the Grand Canyon. They will spend four days at each site. They have been in Moab for three days now.
I was at Valley of the Gods in the late 1990s. It's a great state park with camp sites right next to impressive red sandstone formations. Erin and Eric climbed around the rocks we were camped at and both thought the rocks were "cool." I highly recommend that place over anything close to Las Vegas.
Sadie napped on the cool wet sand while I talked to this chatty couple. By the time I made it back to the van it was 3.5 hours since starting the hike, perhaps the longest four-mile hike I've ever taken. Sadie was relieved to be back in the van with the AC on high and I was glad to be back on the road again. I had now done all the close hiking trails in Moab; there was nothing else for me to do.
A quick stop back at the Microbrewery drinking the same two beers was not as lively as yesterday. There were few people in the bar at 5pm other than a few business people taking a business vacation from Salt Lake City. This was their first time in Moab. We made small talk but the conversation was nothing like yesterday's lively conversation.
I was now ready for my next destination: Mesa Verde, 120 miles from Moab. I passed the Wilson natural bridge north of Monticello before turning east on US Hwy 160 into Cortez. That was my destination for the night.
Cortez is predominantly a Hispanic-Native American town with good diners and shopping before hitting Mesa Verde, my destination for tomorrow. I stopped at the Cortez brewery here for one last beer (exceding my usual two-beers-at-a-time limit).
It was here at the bar that I met Peter, originally from Massachusetts but now living in Dever as an environmental engineer/inspector for the oil and gas industry. He quickly revealed that he was a staunch conservative and was sick of the California Democrats who were ruining this country: the "Cap and Trade" bill proposed in early June via the Waxman-Markey proposal. aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions but also pushing for alternative fuels EXCEPT for natural gas, got Peter livid.
"Natural gas is perhaps one of our biggest reserve of clean fuel for the next 100 years and yet the Democrats completely ignore that option. Instead they are going to push for more biofuels like corn ethanol that will only hike up the price for all corn."
Peter was clearly very passionate about his job. In the 1980s he traveled to India and Nepal with his then girlfriend, then did environmental work for the UN across third-world countries. He knew his job. But he's made Denver his home for over 15 years where he enjoys hiking and skiing and staying fit. His slender physique revealed a healthy, active lifestyle.
"Americans have the cleanest, safest, most drinkable water in the world" he added.
I wanted to talk more with Peter as alternative fuels is something I want to see pushed more of, too, and not just ethanol. Like Peter said, both solar and wind power are not constant and the energy produced from those means has to be stored. But he was in town at a hotel because he had a four-hour drive the next day west into Utah to inspect a fuel-contaminated site left behind by an oil company. It was 8:30pm and he had to get up at 4:30am. I didn't want to keep him up. We departed the bar, shook hands, and I thanked him for his well-defended stance and his insightful opinions on our current energy policies.
We sat on a hilltop for 30 minutes, just the two of us, hoping the sun would get high enough to light up the more larger peaks to the west, but nothing happened. I lay on the warm rocks for 30 minutes, but the morning sky never lightened. There was no life from the campers down in the campsite. The sky did not light up enough until well after 7am, after I had washed my hair and cleaned up. There was no spectacular sun rise today.
We did, however, enjoy romping around the rocks for an hour, until well past 8am when I should have taken us to the Negro Bill trail down by the Colorado river. Instead, I drove east on the Sand Flats Road, into the National Forest for ten miles, before I realized that wasn't getting me anywhere, and I was leting the day get hotter and wasting time.
After a quick stop in town at the Barkery, a store for and about dogs where I chatted with the friendly store owner, I was off for the Negro Bill trail off the Colorado River. The trailhead was well-marked...and the parking lot was full. This was clearly a popular four-mile hike to a natural bridge. I chose this for the stream along the way.
On a cooler day this would be a great hike, passing willows, cottonwoods and sagebrush. But at 10:50am when we started it was already in the upper 80s and there were plenty of exposed sections along the way.
Sadie's paws were getting burned by the hot red sand. She yelped a few times and pulled on her leash. And then I realized the poor girl's paws were getting burned. I let her off-leash so that she could run ahead of me to the shaded parts along the way. Her fur was hot, too. Even I was getting parched, feeling the spit in my mouth dry on contact with the air. This was hot!
I chose instead to take Sadie through the creek to keep her cool. This slowed us down a bit as Sadie does not like deep water, but in most places the water was no more than calf-high. That is already too deep for her. Small fish, tadpoles and an interesting blue-green incandescent crayfish made the Negro Bill creek its home.
I enjoyed wading through the creek in my Tevas but being in the creek also made us miss the faint trail sign taking hikers across the creek and into the side canyon. Instead we stayed on a smaller trail to another creek that soon stopped trickling. I was hot, stopped an hour into the hike when we should have been at the natural bridge, and rested with Sadie under the shade of a juniper tree. I was ready to abort the trail. My water had run low.
But the headstrong in me said to return to the main trail and find that elusive turn-off. It wasn't that hard to miss, so we continued up this exposed section and soon found the sand arch. And when we arrived we found four other people there resting in the shade, two were a couple from outside St Paul MN with whom I chatted with for an hour!
Bill and Kim had left their Minnesota home 1 July. They were on a month-long roadtrip with their Toyota Tundra and pop-up camper which they really like. They will travel all over southern Utah, see Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, and camp out at Valley of the Gods in Nevada before turning south toward the Grand Canyon. They will spend four days at each site. They have been in Moab for three days now.
I was at Valley of the Gods in the late 1990s. It's a great state park with camp sites right next to impressive red sandstone formations. Erin and Eric climbed around the rocks we were camped at and both thought the rocks were "cool." I highly recommend that place over anything close to Las Vegas.
Sadie napped on the cool wet sand while I talked to this chatty couple. By the time I made it back to the van it was 3.5 hours since starting the hike, perhaps the longest four-mile hike I've ever taken. Sadie was relieved to be back in the van with the AC on high and I was glad to be back on the road again. I had now done all the close hiking trails in Moab; there was nothing else for me to do.
A quick stop back at the Microbrewery drinking the same two beers was not as lively as yesterday. There were few people in the bar at 5pm other than a few business people taking a business vacation from Salt Lake City. This was their first time in Moab. We made small talk but the conversation was nothing like yesterday's lively conversation.
I was now ready for my next destination: Mesa Verde, 120 miles from Moab. I passed the Wilson natural bridge north of Monticello before turning east on US Hwy 160 into Cortez. That was my destination for the night.
Cortez is predominantly a Hispanic-Native American town with good diners and shopping before hitting Mesa Verde, my destination for tomorrow. I stopped at the Cortez brewery here for one last beer (exceding my usual two-beers-at-a-time limit).
It was here at the bar that I met Peter, originally from Massachusetts but now living in Dever as an environmental engineer/inspector for the oil and gas industry. He quickly revealed that he was a staunch conservative and was sick of the California Democrats who were ruining this country: the "Cap and Trade" bill proposed in early June via the Waxman-Markey proposal. aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions but also pushing for alternative fuels EXCEPT for natural gas, got Peter livid.
"Natural gas is perhaps one of our biggest reserve of clean fuel for the next 100 years and yet the Democrats completely ignore that option. Instead they are going to push for more biofuels like corn ethanol that will only hike up the price for all corn."
Peter was clearly very passionate about his job. In the 1980s he traveled to India and Nepal with his then girlfriend, then did environmental work for the UN across third-world countries. He knew his job. But he's made Denver his home for over 15 years where he enjoys hiking and skiing and staying fit. His slender physique revealed a healthy, active lifestyle.
"Americans have the cleanest, safest, most drinkable water in the world" he added.
I wanted to talk more with Peter as alternative fuels is something I want to see pushed more of, too, and not just ethanol. Like Peter said, both solar and wind power are not constant and the energy produced from those means has to be stored. But he was in town at a hotel because he had a four-hour drive the next day west into Utah to inspect a fuel-contaminated site left behind by an oil company. It was 8:30pm and he had to get up at 4:30am. I didn't want to keep him up. We departed the bar, shook hands, and I thanked him for his well-defended stance and his insightful opinions on our current energy policies.
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