Moab, Utah

Around Moab are some of the scenic and photographic gold mines that are very high on our list of places to visit. But before we go and excitedly delve into the wonders of canyons, arches, and fantastic sandstone formations, we have to stop and try to get the blog up to date.


Whew! Five days work, and still not up to date! But at least we are now only 2 weeks behind – much better than the 2 months when we arrived here. This is much harder than you would imagine – something like wringing blood out of a stone. Each posting takes most of a day of drafting, writing, editing, preparing photos and doing the actual posting. Hopefully it is worth the time and effort, although it is not looking that way from here.

Now we are going to take a couple of days away from blogging to do some sightseeing and photography - which is what we came here for, but more on that later. It is so HOT. We saw the forecast yesterday. It was 97 (36) here in Moab, expecting 100 (38) today, 107 (42) on Friday, 110 (43) Sat, then back into the 90’s Sun and next week. Whew! It’s hard to hike out to the best locations in that heat, although we are acclimatising to it more (but sooo slowly!).

So what is here to see and do here? Aside from Moab town, the attractions include: Arches National Park; Canyonlands National Park (there are three sections – Island in the Sky; Needles; and The Maze) ; Dead Horse Point State Park; the Manti-La Sal mountains; Professor Valley; and a number of other individual scenic points.

Arches NP is an amazing place, with more than 2000 natural arches discovered so far, but only around 20 or so accessible to the public.

Of the three sections of Canyonlands, Islands is the most accessible, just 55km from Moab to the visitor centre, The Needles is next at 120 km, and The Maze is furthest and possibly one of the most inaccessible places in the US, at nearly 300km from Moab. The nearest settlement of any consequence is only 100 km closer. We read warnings saying that if you get stuck deep inside The Maze, it can easily cost $2500 to be rescued. Naturally, high clearance 4WDs are essential to get into there.

We will spend most of our time in Canyonlands (Islands in the Sky section) and Arches National Park, and our photos reflect that.

This is a good place to stop this entry, and continue next time by looking at Canyonlands, then Look at Arches National Park in another article. More soon…