USA 2023. Moab

Out of all the destinations for the trip, Moab was the one I truly looked forward to. As it is with this trip, there are many flavors, and Moab was to change the flavor again.

I didn’t really know what to expect. Unlike my other destinations, Moab isn’t a national or state park. It’s a town. Although it does have 2 national parks nearby(Arches and Canyonlands). Being a Jeep guy, and following other Jeepers, all I knew was it was an area filled with off road trails. A place of Jeep pilgrimage.

So it seemed just a bit anti-climactic when I rolled into town and there weren’t Jeeps everywhere. That being said, I arrived on a Friday. By Saturday, there were quite a few off road rigs around. I went to the information center…not knowing what to expect. Could I just ask about 4×4 trails? Yup! The guide pointed out a super thick book that had all of them, but otherwise he suggested 3 and gave me directions. It seemed too easy.

I headed out to drive my first trail. I’m not sure if I drove it backwards, but from the highway, the Gemini Bridges trail had some pretty steep climbs at the beginning…one short bit that was more steep than I would have liked, but I crawled up it. Then it went down into the valley. The rest of the trail was interesting, but not spectacular. Definitely got me back into trail riding.

At first I wasn’t going to push myself since I had only arrived around noon, but I still had time, so I then took the Long Canyon trail. It was much more spectacular. It started in a fairly thin section of canyon, working it’s way down steeply. At one point it went under a massive rock that was leaning against the canyon wall. The guy had warned me that the canyon switchback was a bit tougher, but going downhill it seemed quite easy. Coming out into the canyon, the scenery was spectacular, and I was off roading while seeing it!

One thing I do miss with this desert heat is off roading with the windows down…I suppose I could have done that, but I wanted to be comfortable with the AC instead of dying in the desert heat.

That was day 1’s trails. I then set out to find a wilderness campsite in BLM land like I had done the previous night in Valley of the gods. The guy at the info center had given me a few spots to check out. I went down the one road, but the sites didn’t seem that good, and the road was super rough, so I didn’t want to drive deeper. So I went down the other road he mentioned and found a perfect spot on the side of a hill, with amazing views over the desert lands. And it had a Juniper tree to provide shade! I really enjoyed my evening there, and it was so quiet at night.

I woke up the next morning to an amazing sunrise shining into my camper top…and I just laid there and enjoyed it, without taking pictures. I have plenty of sunrise photos, it’s nice to just experience one…in bed.

I looked up some trails on the internet, and noticed there was one in Canyonlands park, which was just down the road from where I had camped. I drove in and asked around, and ended up driving the  Shafer switchbacks down into the canyon, then out to the main road on the Potash trail. The switchbacks were crazy cool. The Potash trail was pretty good looking too, but I’ll admit I often was just enjoying trail riding instead of taking photos.

Usually one Jeep trail is enough for a day. They take quite a bit of mental energy, and I start to feel bad about beating on the Jeep like that. But, I had tons of time, and when in Moab… So I tried out Chicken Corners. It started out as a spectacular canyon drive that quickly became a wild ride with more technical rock climbs, steep hills, and even some sand. I banged the belly of the Jeep on the rocks a couple of times, and knocked my air dam off while moving over for another vehicle. None of it was too over the top, but it required a lot of concentration. No easy back road driving here! It was hard to fully capture the hard bits…because I was too busy keeping the Jeep moving! It was a bit overly intense, but I’m glad I did it. There were some full size pickup trucks that did it, but they were really slow over the rough parts. There was also a lifted rig who was quite a bit faster than me.

I should mention, this was a Saturday, and during my run of Chicken Corners, there were probably a dozen other vehicles on the trail, so if something had of gone wrong, I felt more safe than on some of my more remote adventures. Also, Moab was 10 minutes away from the trailhead. Thus my willingness to push it just a but more than usual.

After Chicken Corners, I was a little off-roaded out. I felt like I had been pushing Skye just a little too hard, and I was tired. Compounding the issue, I decided to head back to the same spot I had stayed the previous night…and then I couldn’t find it! There are all sorts of turn offs and backroads around where it was, and I kept going down the wrong road. The sun was getting low when I finally tried a road that I was sure wasn’t it…and it was.

That night got really windy, and there was a bit of rain. And again I woke up to another amazing sunrise. This was Sunday, and I went into town, got a shower at an RV park(after a week without one), and went to a nice little Baptist church service. Then, I decided to take the day off. Normally on my trips, I have rain days…and I have rain days reserved for this trip as well, but what if it doesn’t rain? So I haven’t really had a break of any kind for 2 weeks. I found a nice campsite by the Colorado river and spent the afternoon just relaxing.

I have really enjoyed my time in Moab. So far out of all the places I’ve visited on this trip, I’m quite sure I will be returning here. Utah in general has become a favorite. It has long stretches of wilderness, great trails and parks, and really friendly people. I’m pretty sure I could easily spend a few weeks in Moab and not run out of things to do.