Moab, UT

this place needs its own thread. it's deeply beautiful. everyone should go there. unfortunately it's hard to move on the cheap as i'm now discovering. anyway it's insane, look at this:

http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/VFT/MoabFaultfromGBRrdno742-950w.jpg

went there once as a teenager en route to Zion and Arches. awesome place to camp out.

I got honked at when walking on the sidewalk in Moab. Turned out it was just another longhair doing a longhair solidarity honk I guess? It was brighter than the sun that day so I may have dreamed the whole encounter.

I have been many times, with many different people, along with New Orleans my favorite place in the USA. I've had some great Mexican food there too.

I had ok Mexican food there last year, then the next morning set off for overnight backpacking trip in Canyonlands. Puked my goddamm brains out by time we made it to campsite due to food poisoning.
They had a good local version of The Onion newspaper (free at this hipstery coffee/breakfast place) that fooled me into thinking it was real.

I got honked at when walking on the sidewalk in Moab. Turned out it was just another longhair doing a longhair solidarity honk I guess? It was brighter than the sun that day so I may have dreamed the whole encounter.

― I_Got_Loaded, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 02:58 (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

username checks out

Place is fun, been a regular visitor since 91, the vibe has changed pretty radically since then and even more since big uranium i guess (i heard stories of geo engineers and attys flying over the area by plane and literally throwing markers to stake claims).

Finally rode white rim in November, strong recommend for a late year multi day jeep or mtb trip. Photo from top of Shafer drop is in my office now. https://instagram.com/p/Bfbe9fGF98n/

Heading back to ride Kokopelli in August, gonna be an inferno.

Hasn't "big uranium" been around there since the 50s?

Is that ur pix xp

Lol yeah i took it with my phone on my bike. Not pro but memorable so i just made it

My understanding is the interests are very much still there, but i’m not sure what % of economy is still in there- maybe i could better term 50s-80s era is not so much ‘big uranium’ as ‘only uranium’? I should educate myself more there.

In the 1950s Moab became the so-called "Uranium Capital of the World" after geologist Charles Steen found a rich deposit of uranium ore south of the city.[9] This discovery coincided with the advent of the era of nuclear weapons and nuclear power in the United States, and Moab's boom years began.
The city population grew nearly 500% over the next few years, bringing the population to near 6,000 people. The explosion in population caused much construction of houses and schools. Charles Steen donated a great deal of money and land to create new houses and churches in Moab.[18]
With the winding down of the Cold War, Moab's uranium boom was over, and the city's population drastically declined. By the early 1980s a number of homes stood empty, and nearly all of the uranium mines had closed.

have been through here once, it looked cool. would love to go back and spend actual time

The climate strikes me as a bit odd: same elevation as where I live, but it's a couplefew hundred miles to the north. Just about identical summertime highs but it's winter highs are 15 degrees cooler than by me. I guess partly cause it's even drier there? idk

another incredible view from the side of White Rim. you had to go about 30 yards off the jeep road to even notice this one, i think my two pals missed this one altogether! we rode it in one day, camping at the top of mineral drop, and rode the loop. i did it that way as bucket list item, but not that i've done it, i want to go back and do a multi day jeep supported trip down there, it's amazing. here's another view from White Rim, i think about 30 miles into the 100 mile loop.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbI6vRSFM8k/

"now that i've done it"

cool pics!

that one reminds me of camping spot we had in Islands in the Sky. Hiked about a mile from Murphy Point parking lot, found this lil ledge 15 feet below the main rim that was just big enough to set up camp.

That would be great! I was looking at pics from this guy whose instagram is super fascinating https://www.instagram.com/rlngstrt- one of his views from Island in the Sky makes it a must visit for me soon.

the desert gets cold at night, i think it's the dry air and the ground surface - no heat absorption.

arches is usually too crowded for me but canyonlands is magic. the scale of it is awesome. i'm much more into a big area with a lot of dynamics than like single rock formation destinations, although arches is pretty big and dynamic too tbf. thinking a lot about uplift and water erosion, how those systems must interact to make it all happen.

there's definitely still a lot of mining interest in the area but my anecdotal impression is that tourism is a much bigger boon than it used to be and that a fair amount of the local population is anti-mining.

one thing i don't get and find kind of annoying is the big 4x4 events there. looking up at these stupid people in their stupid jeeps on some 45 degree pitch. really you can't think of a better way to experience the insane land here than in a fucking car, ugh.

i put a deposit down on a basement apt there this weekend, moving in a month. so excited.

my favorite thing to do there and the reason i'm moving is to run on the mountain bike trails, especially over rock.

cool man, good luck!

I agree wrt Jeeps. Seems to be a lot of them are midwesterners coming for those events who have little to no respect for how fragile desert ecosystems are.
Ya cold at nights/mornings cause there's no clouds or even dense moist air to retain the heat. I can feel the temp drop the instant the sun goes down.

thanks

It's funny cause I'm a hiker, don't mountain bike, and I can get a bit perturbed by some bikers' attitudes to the land. Treat it like an amusement park rather than an ecosystem etc. But overall mtn bike community is really cool and respectful .

it's an unbelievable place to ride and hike...so jealous

There was pretty heated battle between mtn bikers and forest service/hikers here in Sedona in the last 15 years or so. Mtn bikers starting illegal/unsanctioned trails w/no regard to erosion and other issues. But they had a kumbaya relational shift in last few years, working together, compromising.

yeah mountain bikers can be a little bro-y but in general they're pretty eco conscious ime

I shed a tear when I see crisscross bike tracks all thru an offtrail cryptobiotic soil area but yes I'd agree

there's an amusement park aspect to running on rock too, it's kind of like dancing. i'm not really into distance running, more 6-7 miles on a trail with some power, speed and grace. there are very few somewhat developed places in the world with the kind of terrain that moab has. also really into hiking and camping too of course.

the soil build-up is so important, but there are so many other large-scale human intrusions on the ecosystem i can't really get too worked up about it -- like the giant potash mine below dead horse point or the constant sound of planes in the flyover corridor above - that kind of noise has a huge impact on a desert ecosystem.

i'm really curious about making it down further south to bears ears national monument at some point to get a feel for how that's shaping up.

there's so much around Moab to explore. even a Rocky Mtn town like Telluride is only lil over 2 hrs away iirc.

Gravity ride culture is generaly bro ey as hell afaict and...thats just not how i ride. (tbc all kinds of riding can be destructive and broey tho).

I have been spending some time looking at the stuff SUWA wilderness group sent me- they seem very cool.

agreed, would like to connect with those people

canyonlands is my fav of the desert national parks. so remote

you have to do an 8 hour 4x4 trek to even get to the maze. i've heard the easiest way to get to that part of the park is a boat taxi and then a hike up to the dollhouse.

map how does Moab compare to/differ from similar canyony places in the midwest/southwest?

map when I come visit you in Moab can we go camping or is it too cold?

moab is friendlier and more salt-of-the-earth than most western tourist towns i've been to, but it doesn't feel backwards or claustrophobic like ranching / mining towns that are trying to hold on.

steve it should be fine april - october at least so if you're planning on visiting in those months then of course we're camping.

i made it. omg spring here is sooooooooo beautiful

holy shit! that's great! you probably picked a good time of year to arrive. i've only been to moab a couple times, as a stop on the way to the deserts and slot canyons in southeast UT. both were incredible experiences and i was so jealous of everyone who lived around there. someday i hope to make it out west.

stay safe and gl

thanks my dudes.

Moab, UT more like Moa bUT

LOL

Mill Creek flows out of the La Sals (a volcanic island of peaks about 12000 ft high) and runs through town. For about four blocks just west of Main Street it's just the creek, a Cottonwood grove and a dirt road.

https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/31421594_10156318030637720_8515138990462634796_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=50d777f2277ae203533a994efd3c9761&oe=5B58C514
https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/31404270_10156318030632720_16608587695829290_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=ccf8912833125488d5895c03366b8be4&oe=5B6489FA
https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/31444997_10156318030672720_9162040987704711188_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=be17a5ae7b03e1992b009edf8a0a24eb&oe=5B8F8B66

this weekend main street was overrun by car show people (definitely not my bag). weird to see the main drag backed up for miles this morning with those folks leaving while just a few blocks west it's the usual sleepy small town barely-there traffic.

i can't get over how you can just walk out your front door and breathe extremely clean, delicious air. fills me with glee.

I love how the La Sals got their name.
Ha I even love when there's nearby wildfires...everything smells like a campfire. Unless the smell lasts for days, then it gets to be too much.

wikipedia has a great photo of the la sals from gemini bridges road. i love running in that area on the magnificent 7 trails.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/LaSalMountains.jpg

the cottonwoods are going wild right now and the air is very sweet-smelling.

never been more grateful for thai food becoming popular in middle america 15 years ago, because there are two (!) thai restaurants here and one is actually pretty good.

👍. Pretty soon itll get HOT. Where are u from?

Dry heat tho, outta the sun its no prob really.

"They also said they liked your needlepoint about 'thy rod and thy staff,' that is a strong verse from the good book."

🧐

https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-Bible-say-about-wearing-leather

I abandoned this thread and the entire internet on seeing those photos. Looks amazing. Enjoy!

haha thanks - we did. the place was as amazing as it looks in the photos. the view even more insane tbh. half a mile from a gorgeous and rugged trail into canyons of the ancients nm. ute mountain silhouetted against a golden field like a western andrew wyeth painting.

i've been here since 2 days ago, leaving monday. i had an amazing 4 hours out on amasa back yesterday and a shorter recovery run at bar m today. this trip has been special for a few reasons. my running has been stronger than it has been in awhile. i have this new meditative spiritual practice, a relationship to the nameless. and i'm desperately in love with someone who's far away but closer than ever. yesterday was about insane elation and joy. today was about paying respects to pain. i'm lighting a fire out past kane creek tonight and spending some time under the stars.

aw it's nice to read about that last trip. i'm here again. today was just perfect. too much to say.

but why not? it took me 3 hours this morning to finally decide where to go. a big field of broken white sandstone on google maps i've never been to. it was even better than i imagined, little mini-knolls knee to chest high, free running bliss two miles to the end and back, cruising through little ravines, hopping across spines and knolls. no footprints, no trail, pristine lichen on all the rocks. a little amphitheater with chocolate-colored standing pillars at the top. meditation there. i got back to the motel and popped this sativa microdose pill and felt a bunch of energy so went over to the southtown gym and had a great workout. connected up with my fellas afterward. a day as high as they come.

i don't know if this photo will show up, but if it does - i'm proud of it :)

https://scontent.fslc3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.75761-15/481159094_18273120844254256_5620457402500144663_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=ADJoWuVCFfYQ7kNvgHC3k73&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fslc3-1.fna&_nc_gid=AvDpX3SGdZku5aA9vqEUl67&oh=00_AYC3jyrkL7yQRLe4lxMT6MZDheBDS5KN4ilfRV2jThjNZA&oe=67C3B71A

Vag canyon

*nods sagely*

map i love reading and seeing your reports in this thread. living in new england with 3 kids i haven't been to utah in almost 20 years but i pine. thanks for the vicarious pleasures!

oh my god, i had a big ole heart pang when i read that update from february. i'm still with one fella but the other has flown on.

poorly-compensated salt lake city-area mountain bikers and desert rats know that when hotel prices are highest in moab (spring and fall), fruita colorado is a suitable alternative. there are hundreds of miles of trails through desert wilderness in the area. the main event is the uncompahgre uplift tipping its arm into a section of the colorado river. it's sort of the "beginning" of the colorado plateau from the north east. the first sandstone appears in smooth layers and rims around canyons that drain into the colorado. the rock and the vertical are not as dramatic overall as they are in and around moab but the desert is just as beautiful. and the ease with which a traveler inclined to spend some time outside in solitude can lose the presence of other people is greater than it is in moab. the "very scenic western town" magic that brings crowds of tourists to main street in moab doesn't really exist in fruita, though the town has caught on to its reputation as a "poor man's moab" with a family friendly vibe. there are two bike shops and a few pizza-and-burger type restaurants (one, an indian place, is legit good). the other tourist town in the area is palisade, about 30 miles to the east at the other end of the grand valley, where the colorado spills out of its last rocky mountain canyon. in palisade, there are vineyards, peach orchards, historic wood frame houses and a dispensary. people do wine tours and weddings. you can get a solid gourmet burger and locally distilled whiskey there, etc.

in the middle of fruita and palisade is grand junction, the biggest town of the three and, as many times as i've tried to like it, it's just an undeniably bad vibe. grim, grim town. down and out with a born-again contingent. conservative. reminds me of some godforsaken town on the high plains. there is a university there. for a while i thought it would be a great place to fulfill my goals of relocation - great outdoors and desert access, cleaner air, quieter and smaller town, relatively affordable, slightly warmer overall than salt lake city - but man grand junction is a dump.

anywho my partner and i are getting out of the city and spending a few days in the area this weekend. it's a good place to go overall, in spite of the grimness of grand junction. the motel i like to stay at is very reasonably priced, comfortable and locally owned, a rare combination. kind of feel like a dog who has been pent up for too long, waiting to get out of here. two more days.

also depending on road quality, energy levels and confidence in trail scouting we may make a trip to see these bad boys:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUgTHIOdskQgyoO_2QmrDCF_Mm2Xax9t18HhqmOMsRlqCvbq9DhAVsf5dTdFqXhgW1U965ozHanBBMYzOuF1mAFtURJhAc_gsUY9voQQeV0f6PyNa6RdzB2JaopZkjf2hRU18mCx9a6Dka/s1600/Sieber+Canyon+Lower+244.JPG

^this trip was great, though we didn't end up seeing any rock art. instead we spent time in an area behind the first uplifted layer of rock on the uncompahgre colloquially known as "bangs canyon". if you can imagine a side view of the landscape looking like /|/| (where the / is actually at a much less drastic slope) we were between the first /| and the second /|. gnarled pinon and juniper and assorted brush scattered across red and gray clay-heavy soil. the trail is called the ribbon trail. i don't recall it existing the last time we went to the area several years ago but i could have just missed it. it's notable because it follows hard sandstone washes and open areas for several miles up the incline and is one of the few (only?) "straight slickrock" trails in the area. i love running on the rock so i naturally gravitated to it. the first day we did it - clear, warm, sunny weather. the second day - unsettled weather. and when i got all the way out on my "out and back," a storm started coming in. on my way back, pretty hard rain and some hail. lightning and thunder (exposure definitely a concern in the area on ridges especially). i ran into j about a mile from the trail head (he hikes while i run ahead). that last mile is an ascent up a layer of rock and as such is more exposed. this kind of desert soil - if it gets wet, it turns into a slip n slide. mud collects on your soles like cement mixed with superglue. needless to say i was walking. on one escarpment we hit a wild, strong microburst of wind, it must have been at least 60 mph - knock-you-over strong. my poor baby slipped and got real scared about getting back up and moving on. but i helped him through it and we found an alternate way up. he was pretty rattled about it but we made it back just fine and the rest of the day was nice.

and we finally tried the local favorite restaurant in fruita - hot tomato pizza. it was legit good. we both had salads and slices, both great. good people-watching - handsome rugged colorado men and women - unlike the texmex place we went to the night before with a decrepit trump rally vibe.

in the middle of fruita and palisade is grand junction, the biggest town of the three and, as many times as i've tried to like it, it's just an undeniably bad vibe. grim, grim town. down and out with a born-again contingent. conservative. reminds me of some godforsaken town on the high plains. there is a university there. for a while i thought it would be a great place to fulfill my goals of relocation - great outdoors and desert access, cleaner air, quieter and smaller town, relatively affordable, slightly warmer overall than salt lake city - but man grand junction is a dump.

also just gotta note that we saw much more charming areas of grand junction on this trip and we were talking with some renewed gusto about the idea of moving there.

I’m head to Grand Junction tomorrow! My brother lives there during Aspen’s non-ski season (he’s an instructor). I haven’t spent much time there, but I did enjoy the Palisades farmers market!

oh that's cool, have fun :)

quite a chance of rain this weekend!

Looks like it. It’s the dry season in SoCal so I would actually enjoy a bit of rain. I would love to rendezvous with you when I’m not doing such a quick turnaround (back to CA on Tuesday).

I lived in Utah for 4 years as a child. I’ve made a few trips as an adult, but haven’t been to Moab since, like, 1979. There was very little there back then; I understand it has changed quite a bit since.

haha, i'm clear up in slc but i appreciate the suggestion - if the stars align for a meet up one day that would be nice :). i'm into the idea of potentially living there some day. nowhere is perfect but it ticks a lot of boxes for me. hope it's a lovely trip.

moab has changed a lot, definitely.

couldn't turn down a last-minute trip to moab this weekend, saturday through tuesday. monday i'm calling in sick and tuesday is veteran's day, which i have off. great deal on a motel room. i'm going alone this time.

probably going to post about my trip itt over the next few days.

if other moab visitors happen to read this: the best food in town is in the deli at the back of the organic grocery store, moonflower co-op.

Klondike Bluffs
https://i.postimg.cc/0QgT858c/3A7B7BB9-7F40-4726-A171-CDBA6A2253CE.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/Z5G7Nf1b/5AAD7FD0-F1A5-4A69-AEC6-120607463EF6.jpg
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https://i.postimg.cc/Qt4cQCH3/D50D4D44-5337-43BE-A841-ECEC03F4B988.jpg

it's a weird place to be alone. when i lived here, i was pretty lonely and feeling a lot of pain. the running was a salve. running in such an epic place was a salve. but it only went so far.

every time i come back, that part of my life and that pain--i have to revisit it unfortunately. memories lead to feelings.

that was mostly yesterday. today i was out for about 5 hours in the sun doing a run i'd always wanted to do but never found the time (and the 4x4 drive vehicle) to do before. it was a hard one, big ascent at the end to the edge of a cliff. 8 miles out and back. i wanted to conquer something on this trip and i did. the whole experience was great. being out that long in the sun, running, towards the end i felt like i was tripping. great mix of trails too. an old school jeep trail with the grime and wear and degraded immediate environment. and then some open terrain free running in pristine rock wilderness, feeling weird about treading on lichen, definitely hopping over any cryptobiotic crust, following insane lines.

here's me at the top with a booger on my mustache.

https://i.postimg.cc/zqDcWxX3/Whats-App-Image-2025-11-10-at-6-37-57-PM.jpg

that's highway 191 on the right 1,200 feet below on its final descent into moab.

ok one more, gives a better sense of the insane terrain

https://i.postimg.cc/z82cCnLt/Whats-App-Image-2025-11-10-at-3-56-50-PM.jpg

i'm back in salt lake city and feel like typing a few more things about moab vs. larger cities and the wasatch front specifically.

1. you will never find better-tasting tap water anywhere than moab. it basically comes straight out of the la sal mountains.
2. the darkness at night. overwhelming, obliterating darkness. it seeps into your soul. a dimension and experience that isn't part of life any more, for most of us.
3. the air. to use the metaphor of water: the air there is like a deep, clear lake. it isn't polluted. swimming in it every day is wonderful. the air along the wasatch front, in comparison, is a murky pond in the middle of new construction townhouses, five fast food places and an ikea. filled with microplastics. a million little murders in every breath.

coming back is always such a drag. my head and stomach hurt from the air quality the second i drop back into utah valley. the nature and the air of moab fill me with joy and life. the culture there on the other hand is wack, moneyed in inscrutable ways, tied to a grinding tourist economy and nothing else, and i don't fit in anywhere. at least here i have friends. i can be gay without attracting too much attention. i have my job, my partner, my cat, my life. in a month or so i'll be dying to get back to the desert.

the vibe of moab these days is: upper middle class adventure tourism. a large section of its roots date from the uranium mining boom days. you see remnants of an earlier mode of the american middle class here and there. without the uranium boom it would probably be more like green river or torrey, the former a bombed-out freeway ghost town, the latter a tiny farming/ranching hamlet with some new construction and airbnb tourism from independently wealthy socal and vegas transplants.

moab's early claim to adventure tourism was in the dirt bike arena. and jeeps / 4x4s. for dudes into that stuff it's always been a mecca. i think it's fair to say that guys into jeeping and dirt bikes aren't the most reflective or refined type of person. and it's mostly guys who drive it. their wives / girlfriends gather under the banner as a matter of loyalty afaict. there is still a big contingent of jeep and car people in moab, who come to moab every year, who shape the overall culture. their influence is boneheaded macho, self-consciously american, trumpy ofc.

then there was the mountain bike wave which started in the 80s, centered on the slickrock trail and then expanding into a lot of other rock gardens around the town. their influence has also been macho, but usually more of the outdoors fitness enthusiast type. related to snowboarders and skiiers. a lot of moab mountain biking devotees high-tail it to telluride over the winter.

what else? there is arches and "dramatic rock formation" tourism. five months of tour buses. there are lesbians, devoted to the land and each other. an ecosystem i've only ever had small peeks of. there are lots and lots of dogs. everyone who lives in moab has a dog. everyone who visits moab brings their dog. there are dudes stuck in all kinds of weird dead-end macho cul-de-sacs. there are transplants from new york who started the hipster donut shop and are now trying a wine bar. people who thrill to the imaginary "simple" western macho desert rat thing flock to moab. they are from red states and blue states alike, but have one thing in common: at least a grand they can drop on a vacation.

and i'm back, a month later.

just one month but the crowds are gone. i think the drop-off happens at the end of november into the beginning of december. quite a few restaurants / coffee shops / gift shops / other tourist attractions close their doors december through february. every year there is a marketing campaign to get people here in the winter but it never really makes an appreciable difference as far as i can tell. the shop closures and the crowd disappearance are mutually reinforcing. what mainly happens is that after the first significant snowfall or two, the snow stays wherever it's sheltered from the south angle of the sun. afternoon highs might get up into the upper 40s. a little bit of the snow melts and then freezes in a daily cycle - mud and ice. no bueno for the bikers, and the 4x4ers only want warm weather anyway. the first snow usually falls some time in december.

but there isn't any snow below 5,000 feet and it's unseasonably warm. highs were in the mid-50s today. almost t-shirt weather in the direct sun. i've seen a few people who look like tourists wandering down a mostly empty main street looking for coffee. and the slickrock trailhead was kind of hopping when i returned from my run around 11 am - maybe 10-15 cars in the lot.

for anyone who isn't familiar, the slickrock trail is probably moab's most famous attraction. if you've never been on it, even just hiking a mile or so out is well-worth it, especially at a less-crowded time. when there are families and tourists and other out-of-towners at the trailhead, what tends to happen is they sort of disappear after the first mile or so. more casual bikers will do the "practice loop" which is 2.2 miles but with terrain that is just as difficult as the main trail. it's a technical and an aerobic and a strength challenge. the scenery is unreal.

overall though it was very quiet in moab today. it seems like mostly locals are out and about. when i'm not outside during the sunlit hours, or tired in the afternoon from my run, i'm back in my motel room, or maybe taking a walk, or getting some more food from the co-op deli. it's easy to feel bored. an interesting feeling i'm trying to sit with and not run away from. it's what inspired me to write this before i wind down for the night.

yoooooooooooo i am going to escalante ut this weekend!!!

grand staircase-escalante national monument is huge and desert wilderness core to the max. why i don't go there more often is that my preferred method of visiting the desert (motel stays with shower, bed and heat/ac) is nearly always out of my budget in escalante. the motels there are routinely much more expensive than they are in moab. but something reasonable came up this holiday weekend.

looking at google maps i realized more fully than ever that grand staircase-escalante is an open slickrock playground - especially along side creeks that drain into the escalante along hole-in-the-rock road. i think either i've gotten better at seeing rock in the satellite view or the imaging itself has gotten better. many of the slot canyons that used to be word of mouth are now marked as well. it's kind of a slot canyon mecca. i've been in enough slots to appreciate them but tbh i find them a little eerie and i get a feeling like i'm not supposed to be there when i'm in them. give me the rolling yellow-white checkerboard sandstone bluffs i can trot across over slots and canyoneering every time.

It's a magical place, I about had a heart attack when Trump tried to remove its monument status. Have an amazing time!

thanks :)

I haven’t been off the east coast let alone to Utah in more than a decade at this point, but one of my most treasured memories is a backpacking trip I did along Coyote Gulch about 20 years ago. Some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen, and the transition from being up on Hole-in-the-rock road to where the gulch emptied into the Escalante River was mind boggling. Getting to watch the twists and turns in this little trickle of water go from just impacting the patterns in the sand to creating hundred foot canyon walls… watching golden eagles up in their nest… man oh man. We also did some slot canyons nearby which were just as stunning. Enjoy!

hell yeah, that's fantastic. i'm sure you'll make it back. the desert changes only very slowly :).

i did not know about this national monument, would love to go some day! we'll be in utah in the spring for a wedding but won't have time to parksmaxx

nice :). hope utah doesn't weird you out too much lol. is the wedding an outdoors deal? outdoors weddings are v popular here. i actually attended / djed one in moab for a friend many years ago.

i think i'll do a (short and incomplete) personal rundown of national parks / monuments / a few state parks... because i'm wfh and confined to this room while my partner has a massage client lol...

canyonlands np 5/5. the road up to the lookout is what most people see and even with the crowds (kinda busy april-october with a few really busy times) it's very much worth it. there is a lot of beautiful hiking up there too though i have to admit i haven't done any of it. the place in canyonlands i've hiked is the needles area, which is 3 hours away from the island in the sky view point - you have to drive up and around the drainage and you come at it through the side, traversing a gorgeous valley and dropping into a stunning canyon, past newspaper rock which is an insane collection of rock art. needles area is a huge network of trails that climb up and down rock rims and narrow valleys. day hiking is very much worth it. multi-day backpacking trips are possible with camping by permit. idk how hard the reservations are to get but i don't think they're as hard as, say, yoesmite. the whole needles area is huge and special. it's so so so beautiful. indescribable. hard to capture in photos ime. one of the most beautiful colorado plateau places i've seen.

oh yeah there's the maze. 6 hour slow and hard as fuck 4x4 journey to even get in there. you have to pack everything. plus more permits. i don't know that i'll ever see it in person. fun to follow insta accounts that do though lol.

there is also a small strip that was added just west of the green protecting a canyon that has some of the most beautiful rock art. "barrier canyon" style is named after it. it's very old, 2k-4k years. rock art is notoriously very hard to date. anyway this canyon, the hike down into it, and through it for a few miles, passing by a few smaller panels and then culminating in the main panel, is absurdly beautiful. you have to drive on some dirt roads for about 35 miles south of green river to get there, which invariably takes at least two hours. you don't need serious 4x4 or anything just decent clearance. it's a little out of the way but it's just so fucking cool that i think it's a main event and worth taking a (long) day to do. usually 0 to very few people at the trailhead. it does require some good aerobic capacity and leg strength / sturdiness / balance.

arches np 4/5. it's a banger. most of it is pretty accessible too. it's very popular. timed entry system now i believe. i have been a handful of times and done some easy hikes long ago but i don't fuck with it anymore because it's just too busy for me. one thing i'd still like to do there is the fiery furnace, maybe in the middle of winter or something.

capitol reef 5/5. it doesn't have the rock holes or the multilevel canyon drainage but it's pretty fuckin special man. it's basically a huge "reef" or fold in the earth exposing massive fins of navajo standstone that have been eroded into throne-like structures. plus a lot of other rock layers. water drainage has carved through the fold. very beautiful riparian environments. narrow canyons with wild rock wall stuff. cathedral valley is a separate area. a few hours on dirt roads to get there. big buttes in the middle of vast desert valleys, with a very particular texture to them - fine and ghostly. very high up (almost 7,000 feet) located at a place where drainage from the high flat top mountains to the west hits the rock and the quiet emptiness of the rain shadow desert. capitol reef overall is also less-visited. one of the few national parks in utah you can just waltz into and find solitude relatively easily.

grand staircase escalante nm 5/5. just a huge area of exposed rock drainage with the attendant formations and colors. the canyons of the escalante like people have been saying are unparalleled anywhere. the whole area is less-visited overall but some areas are popular esp near famous highway 12 (calf creek, kinda busy but a really fun hike that ends in a waterfall and pool in a massive gallery - prop tip - upper calf creek offers similar but you'll have the pool to yourself - shorter but grueling climb in and out of the canyon). burr trail - beautiful drive - less busy - some exciting day hike possibilities. the rest of the nm is a little harder to get to. hole in the rock road is graded iirc (to a certain point?) but any of the side roads are gonna be high clearance. i have been here less than i'd like hence my trip this weekend.

at the southern end of grand staircase the pariah enters a deep and narrow canyon on its way to the colorado. it drops into arizona and includes a lot of wild desert wilderness incl. the famous "wave" which takes a rare lottery win to get access to. i've hiked a few miles into the pariah from "white house" campground and it was very memorable.

glen canyon national recreation area. this is obviously lake powell but over land access leads to some of the most remote exposed rock scenery anywhere in the state. i hear that the overland rainbow bridge hike, which starts in din'e, is epic and beautiful. (most people take a boat ride to get there where it's a short hike from the shore.). i'm one of those people with very mixed feelings about the dam and the lake. i think it's kinda ugly and bad juju and i'm not a boater or water rec person. but in spite of the toilet bowl it's just a very rugged and beautiful area. vast areas of exposed rock, big cliffs and formations everywhere.

cedar mesa / grand gulch. sadly not a national anything though grand gulch / dark canyon are wilderness areas. basically tons of ancestral puebloan human settlement artifacts in exposed rock drainage north of the san juan river. look up "comb ridge". insane stuff in there. the visitor's center in blanding told us they weren't allowed to hand out any "official" guide material to comb ridge and all of the rock art / structures in there because the blm is co-managing it with tribal representation at least for now (they gave us a hand-drawn and xeroxed "guide"). i have mixed feelings about "putting things on the map" with regards to national park / monument designations which dampens the personal and exploratory experience of discovering the land's secrets on your own, but i understand and give respect to the different pros and cons incl access and protection.

ok going to se utah where i have much less experience / recent visits...

zion. that main road through the park is crazy beautiful but so busy. i've avoided zion because of that but recently been learning that outside of a few very popular hikes there is some serious backcountry stuff where it's easy to find yourself alone. the sheer prominence of zion is a big part of the drama. several thousand feet from the highest points to the virgin river at the bottom. pretty unreal.

bryce canyon. also on the busier side but it's possible to find some alone time from what i've heard. honestly i haven't been here very much maybe two or three times and not when i was a hiker / trail runner. so i'd like to go back and experience the park when it's a little less busy and i could do some running. not everyone realizes this but it's 10,000+ feet up so a good one to do in the summer, which is when it's busy ofc.

cedar breaks national monument. maybe not quite as dramatic as bryce but it's close. so so so underrated. no one goes here. many hiking opportunities. also 10,000+ ft. another one i'd like to do for 2-3 days in the summer, maybe even over bryce because no crowds.

kodachrome basin state park. "best-kept secret" that's maybe gaining some more popularity? a red rock basin with some prominence and drama with the cliffs and formations. good hikes. people who mention it always talk about the campground facilities - they are nice and you can get a good shower. on the east side of bryce. very small visitation numbers.

just realized it's the "paria" river not the "pariah" lol.

one more thing about grand staircase escalante nm. it's been a touch point of anti-fed energy in southern utah since clinton designated it. right wing utah politicians and the trump administration may actually hollow out protections pretty significantly in sections of it, if they haven't already, i don't really follow this, but i think it's unlikely that the national monument designation gets officially changed or rescinded. it just brings too much money into the area for that. the tourist money has too much of a voice. most places in utah i think that wins over mining and oil/gas money. though for some it's pretty evenly split (nine mile canyon for instance - a place that really deserves and needs protection even more so than grand staircase escalante imho though i don't think that is coming any time soon).

oh i made a huge mistake! cedar mesa / grand gulch is bears ears national monument, duh! that is why there is tribal representation in the land management. i even went to a presentation about this a long time ago. apparently my mind is being mysteriously sucked deep into lake powell, never to be seen again, like so many innocent boaters and swimmers...

This is an awesome summary, thank you map! In addition to my Escalante trip I’ve seen Arches, Zion and Bryce but just for surface level day trip touristy hikes and overlooks. Someday i look forward to diving back in deep

so last weekend in grand staircase-escalante outside escalante was one of the best desert trips i've ever done. it was just exquisite. escalante itself is a very small town in the middle of nowhere. kind of a vague metaphor but if you can imagine "layers" between human civilization and raw nature, and say that your average city or suburb has at least 4-5, escalante has 1. there are some tourist businesses there but nothing had opened yet, except for the restaurant in my motel and a subway. i think that maybe one other motel was open. it was very quiet. nature all up in your face everywhere all the time. crazy sunrises and sunsets. the view from my window ... wow. geese passing by with such clarity. two ranch cats zooming back and forth on the porch of the little farm house a few hundred feet away. drainage and brush and cliffs. grey brown blue. the snow-covered pink breaks of bryce embedded in the dark green high up on the mountain in the distance. desert life.

both days i spent in roughly the same area, a huge basin of exposed rock carved out into washes and buttes a few hundred feet high, west of "red breaks", where the cosmic ashtray is located. the rock stays mostly at an angle that you can stay upright on, so my plan was to do a lot of free running and hopefully find the cosmic ashtray based on nothing but having looked at google maps a lot. the first day i started at the volcano trailhead, the "official" way to do it. first mile and a half is trudging through range land sand, not my favorite kind of terrain tbh. then onto rock with a big climb to the top of the basin. basically i got off trail pretty early on (it's difficult to find and follow this trail for a few reasons). i did some running and some route finding. got to a ridge and stopped, figuring the ashtray was across another steep ravine or two, decided to turn around. direct sun all day and chilly temperature with the sun barely winning the tug of war, getting pretty intense there for an hour or two (i got my first burn of the year lol).

the next day i decided to go to the same area, but at the bottom of the basin, because i enjoyed the terrain so much. 20-mile drive down a well-graded dirt road. then 12 or 13 miles down a much rougher road. my 2 wheel drive kia sportage manages this stuff ok 🙏. the rough road descends into a beautiful, gentle wash. red canyon walls, not very high. cottonwoods and desert riparian brush. the official road ends at a trailhead but the actual road keeps going all the way into the rock basin. signs posted for a wilderness study area, no vehicles. oh well, the road is well-traveled and there are cattle hoof marks all over the fuckin place anyway, it's not exactly pristine, i'm a bad boy and keep going all the way into the basin, which puts much less distance between where the cosmic ashtray is supposedly located and the start of the run, and also allows me to start on rock, which is ideal. i spend a few hours trotting up and down big rock buttes leaping over little crevasses and cake layers and such and finally find the cosmic ashtray slotted high up on the side of a butte, totally invisible from below. it's wilder than i expected (google "cosmic ashtray" to get an idea). way cool.

really crucial meditations kept me light and open most of the time. no slips into despair loops. just acknowledging and observing darkness at the edge of the light. the beauty and the insanity of the earth. the deep endless quiet and the darkness at night. friendly and enveloping. i felt recharged this week after coming back. kind of a stressful day yesterday but it didn't get to me. i need these trips, they're like an extra charge to my spiritual battery. already thinking about the next one. i love the idea of going somewhere new-ish again. there is a motel about 20 miles north of bullfrog marina lake powell i'm thinking about.

sounds like an amazing trip... I mostly know Escalante from the journals of Everett Ruess, I'll have to go see it myself sometime even thought Utah is not my favorite state in the union

i haven't read the journals embarrassingly, i should fix that. we have one of the woodblock prints in our kitchen. i saw a documentary years ago so i know the general outline of the story. the escalante and the area it drains is vast. getting lost and ingested in it does not seem an unlikely end at all for anyone exploring it even today.

yeah, they'll occasionally find some human bones around there and try to test to see if they belong to Ruess but I think the search is over... he just vanished. Interesting kid though, he really lived the life he wanted... I found his original home in Oakland by looking up his dad in these old phone books in the library

map’s travelogue is one of the best post genres

map, have you ever hiked out to The Wave? I want to do it sometime but haven't had enough free time to try for one of the lottery cancelations

of course the wave is spectacular but i don't really do that kind of admin work, applying for lotteries and that sort of thing. kind of a joysuck for me. especially when there is so much desert wilderness of around the colorado plateau equivalent beauty where you don't need to do any that. even some in vermillion cliffs national monument - wire pass, white pocket, etc. one thing i do want look into is how to access some promising looking terrain in din'e, who to talk to, etc.

found my own little version of the wave on this trip!

https://scontent-den2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t51.82787-15/629297234_18315222715254256_2567006408356784367_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=13d280&_nc_ohc=oz-h4S9ghaQQ7kNvwHPsyw4&_nc_oc=AdkHRoq0bGjAz56Z6Al2TUHTKWdQFBurexGKXuVsE79xRFIbQTKi3zRH6wumlEDDmru9GNiNIGSrNBDtFejW_EQv&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-den2-1.xx&_nc_gid=27t5H8l_WzjGNHPA-WXUkg&oh=00_Afsv_OYDZI9GgDJjzWWU3jH3GGM2yw9DIMYLpOVqkkovJA&oe=699CF097

ok one more, here's the cosmic ashtray. i came at it from "the other end" so it's a unique view!

https://scontent-den2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t51.82787-15/627647763_18315222727254256_449590177956975089_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=13d280&_nc_ohc=XzPRT4nGiasQ7kNvwHiY4SD&_nc_oc=AdkLXY7JdY-BG5IC2xWwEmCdLRPYTmGUR5dGl1jssHUXxgvujHzttJwscqqVcJ6elO0HRSSJhwQ2dhNySVeEX_0Q&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-den2-1.xx&_nc_gid=eBDOE1n-4JWW9hK3QYCiVA&oh=00_AftFQtG94zOenoQZVWkHjKcvdTL08mKQteQDZourD8eoAw&oe=699D0058