Remembrance Day today so must take a minute to appreciated today's troops as well as those who have gone before. Received an email from a friend which said something along the lines of, if you don't stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.. I'm standing behind them!! Nice morning once again. Hogan and I up to enjoy some quiet time together, have coffee and get the blog caught up.
John decided to take the motorhome into Moab to have the hitch welded today instead of tomorrow. He said there was a 30% chance of rain tomorrow and he didn't want to be off roading with the bus on wet roads. Although it doesn't rain around here much, when it does, flash floods are not uncommon. Off we go into Moab and while the welding is being done I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things (not that I really needed anything). John found this great little welding shop called West Auto Repair. We met the owner's son there and he was more that helpful and got the hitch fixed up in no time. Stopped to wash the vehicles before we headed back out to the campsite and both John and I commented of how much cheaper it was to wash vehicles down here.
Back at camp around 3 oclock so decided to do one of the 4X4 trails around the campsite. Loaded up the truck and off we went to do the Gemini Bridges Trail. It is described as an easy trail and only 10 miles long. Of course there are spur trails branching off if more adventure is needed. Once we accessed the trail it started it's steady climb up the tall cliff walls along a shelf trail that gave us incredible views of the highway FAR below. The trail was narrow but, all in all, plenty wide enough for the truck. There were even some areas wide enough to allow on coming traffic to pass. Once up at the top we entered Little Canyon. This was a lovely sandy trail which crossed between two very tall sandstone cliffs. There were lots of juniper trees and plenty of evidence of flooding. The Bureau of Land Management had roped off several sections along this sandy trail as an effort towards restoration. It is good to see that the BLM wants to preserve the ecosystem around here and at the same time keep the trails open. Hopefully everyone obeys the signs and remains on the trails although there was some evidence to the contrary. I guess there are idiots in every country!
We took a short side trip into a box canyon and found some lovely campsites (tents only) tucked at the bottom of the cliffs. In this canyon we saw a couple of arches as you can see from the pics. In one picture, I wanted to show how tiny the truck was against the massive walls of rock. Hogan got out of the truck and had a little run back to the main trail. On the way back to the main trail we saw some wood left behind by a previous camper so felt obliged to take it and burn it tonight when we get home. There is to be no collecting of firewood along the trail systems around here so wood is a precious commodity.
Once back on the main trail, we continued along a sandy bottom until we started to climb on what is called slick rock. There were several little stair steps and the truck handled them well. We took some video and hopefully they turn out well. Took lots of pics as well. We eventually made it to the Gemini Bridges Overlook. It was quite spectacular to see. The bridges are two parallel natural spans that bridge a deep canyon. The BLM had roped off alot of this area, one being the trail that actually allows you to drive on the bridges, however, with the constant erosion going on, the trail now appears closed.
We continued on and drove the Four Arches Canyon Trail. This trail, again described as easy, dropped us down into a grassy valley known as Crips Hole. We followed the trail which took us over a bit of slick rock and sandy wash bottom. Once again John and I could see the very apparent and real danger of flash flooding. We followed the trail which would eventually lead us past four arches along the canyon walls. There were a few challenging spots along the way and John was quite impressed with the degree of articulation on the truck. We got to the end and hadn't seen any of the four arches!! It was a spur trail so turned around and headed back to the main trail. It was on the way out that we saw the arch known as Mosquito Arch. That was the only one (of the four) we saw.
Back on the main trail and headed towards the trailhead on Hwy 313 and once there, it was a quick trip back to camp. Started a campfire with the wood we found and enjoyed the rest of the evening.
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