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Moab Part 2
Let's Rock and Roll!
“What? Why are you going back to Moab? Didn’t you get your fill a week ago?” Well, no actually. We were only there for one day, and there are a whole bunch of other things to do in Moab. Take, for example, Arches National Park. That’s where we went in the morning. I’ll give you a dollar if you can guess what makes Arches National Park special. No Timmy, it doesn’t have a large canyon. No Rebecca, Bob Marley doesn’t sing about it, that would be Zion. That’s right Jim Bob, there are lots and lots of arches there! A surprisingly large number actually. The one we chose to hike to was Delicate Arch, which is featured on the Utah license plate. Accordingly, it is a very popular hike. Unless you hike it early on a cold December morning. The temperature may not have been above freezing, but the sun was up and the arch was impressive. It really does look delicate, like you could almost push it over. No, I didn’t try, I didn’t think anyone would appreciate that.
Once we were done with the infernal activity called walking, we thankfully exchanged our powerwalking shoes and weights for bikes. This time around, we rode the Slickrock trail, which is the most famous trail in Moab. The whole ride weaves up, down and around the petrified sand dunes just above town. The rock surface gives you amazing traction, allowing you to ride up and down things that would normally be impossible. The trail designers took this into account by going straight up the face of every little mound they could find. It’s like interval training to 12 miles! Stand up and sprint up a hill, coast down for 2 seconds, repeat. After brutalizing my quads learning to Telemark two days prior, I thought I was going to cramp on every hill. Even so, it was a ton of fun and something I had never done. We only saw three other people until the very end of the trail, when a rabid group of at least 10 bikers came rolling by. When we got back to the parking lot we saw they were driving a full size Ford van, converted to a dually and towing a 35’ travel trailer, with spaces for all of their bikes. Thoroughly castrated by their superior vehicle, we wimpered on back to our now-less-manly van and dreamed of four wheel drive conversions and 44” mud tires. All that was left then was to pack up and head for Portland, 1000 something miles away.