Pictures
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Arches National Park to Canyonlands National Park
Preparing a month's worth of food prior to my departure. Normally the menu is very bar-centric, but for this trip I retained "integrated consumption discipline" (i.e. all snacks must be individually packaged in order to avoid over-eating in the short-term and being hungry in the long-term) while substituting new menu items like trail mix, corn nuts, wasabi peas, oat bran sticks, and salami instead of so many bars. I talk more about this decision on the Diet page.
At the start with housemate Kristen, who was kind enough to bring me to the off-the-beaten-path northern boundary of Arches National Park in Salt Valley. Mother Nature set the tone from the start: it was cold and windy, and it began snowing when I was less than 30 minutes down the road.
I took a 6-mile detour from the Hayduke Trail's guidebook route after following the route for just 2 miles in order to check out Devil's Garden, home to Landscape Arch and other gravity-defying features.
The Colorado Plateau is scorching hot in the summer and darn cold in the winter. Courthouse Wash was still frozen up on February 14.
Kane Spring Canyon, not far up-canyon from the Colorado River and only about 10 miles from the outdoor recreation-dependent town of Moab
The view from Hurrah Pass was dominated by exposed sandstone (in myriad colors and formations) and a uranium mine (tailing piles are just visible in the upper left), one of several in the region.
Lockhart Basin, which sadly did not receive protection via inclusion into Canyonlands National Park and which is now regularly under assault from extractive industries, primarily oil and gas.
In the foreground: Indian Creek (and its many canyons). Just visible in the background: the snow-covered La Sal Mountains, which has peaks over 13,000 feet.
Sand got into and on everything during this trip -- especially my shoes and socks, but also my food, the zipper on my pack, the dials on my camera, my underwear, etc. There's nothing I could do about it -- it's just part of being on the Colorado Plateau, like rain in the Northwest.