Namaste,
Where do I start? Mike picked me up at 7:30 Friday morning, and we hit the road. It was a long day of travel. We made it to Moab in about 12 1/2 hours which is getting after it. We had snow the entire way. We travel down I-40 all the way to Gallup, New Mexico, which is just outside of Arizona and then head North through the Navajo land to Colorado, then into Utah. I drove from Gallup into Moab, so we made good time. We checked into the hotel then through town to find something to eat. We went to Zax, which is a brick oven pizza place. It was very good! We went back to the room and crashed. Mike and I are both early risers, so we headed out to Arches before the sun came up. Our first hike was through Park Avenue, then a primitive trail through then windows, over to Double Arch, up to delicate, over to Broken, and Sand Dune, Skyline, and then to Landscape! By that time I was DONE! We had covered 20 or more miles in two to three feet of snow. The sky's were brilliant, and I go some great pictures. We went back to the hotel and cleaned up. Moab was like a ghost town, so we were limited to our dinner selections. We ended up at the Sunset Grill, which is on top of a hill above town. This was my birthday dinner from Mike. It was very good! We headed back to the room and went to bed! The next morning we were both awake by 4:30 and I ask Mike what time we would need to leave by to get to Meas at Sunrise? He said right now, so we dressed very quickly, and headed out. We got to Mesa and there were already two photographers there. The thing about Mesa Arch at Sunrise is the sun catches the underside of the Arch and it looks like it is on fire. I took 250 pictures and several video shots. We left there and hiked around Island in the sky, then over to Dead Horse point, We headed down to Castle Valley and hiked up to Titan, then over to the Colorado river for the rest of the day. We only covered 10 or 12 miles but it was a lot of ice and snow. We went back to town and decided to hit a Chinese restaurant. Back to the room and sleepy time. We got up early again on Monday morning, and headed down to the Needles district of Canyonlands. Needles is 72 miles South of Moab. We hiked up Elephant Hill to Chessler Park, through the park to Druid Arch turn off, over to joint trail, and then back to Elephant Hill. This was some of the toughest hiking I have ever done. This was as tough as anything I did in Nepal other than climbing Imja Tse. It was tough going breaking trail in several feet of snow. Mike estimated we went over 10 miles. it was beautiful, but I did not take that many pictures because I was focused on staying alive. When we left the Needles we decided to head South through the Navajo reservation and stop in Gallup for the night. We got up early yesterday morning, and headed down I-40 towards home. We got in at 4:00pm and I vegged out the rest of the night. We were going to try to climb Mt Peal again, but the roads around the mountain were closed and it would have been a 15 mile hike into the the base of the mountain before a climb. Just not enough time! Anyway.... A great way to start the New Year, and celebrate my Birthday. There are soooo many details I did not include in here because, I am so far behind, but I need to get ready for work!
Love you all!
Mat
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