Moab - April 2018

The Alpine 14ers headed to Moab in April. Unfortunately, due to some mechanical problems, our fearless leader was not able to join us. However, Tom and Nancy and Bill and Cheryl did join us for dinner on Friday and Saturday night. This time we decided to tackle two trails and do some sight seeing on Saturday. On Thursday, we battled crazy wind while we took on 7 Mile Rim, on Friday we conquered Hell's Revenge, and on Saturday we ventured through Canyonlands for more of a touristy day. All told, this was another awesome trip. Thanks to Gary and Harold for their planning and leading us through the trails.

On Thursday, we faced some crazy wind. Supposedly it was gusting to 60+ mph, and we definitely felt it. We met up with Chad and Maygen in the morning, and they tolerated the wind all day in the buggy.

After fighting the wind and sand for awhile, we decided to look around Uranium Arch for a bit. It was a unique arch, gave us some break from the wind, and it housed a rather large birds nest.

After the arch, we headed out looking for a good place to stop for some lunch. We ventured across these large flat rock formations.

Ultimately, we couldn't find any good places to stop for lunch, so we ended up eating in our Jeeps to escape the wind and sand.

7 Mile Rim was a fun trail, and it would be great to do again when it's not as windy. On Saturday, the wind died down considerably, but the temperature dropped quite a bit, too. We headed to Hell's Revenge. Harold did a great job leading the way.

Hell's Revenge was a fantastic experience, and it definitely induced some sweaty palms on a number of obstacles. It challenged our skills, but we also proved our Jeeps were very capable of taking on the trail. After the initial obstacle, it's a fairly easy drive to the first big hill.

After the hill, we followed the trail out to an awesome view of the river with a few obstacles along the way.

After the observation point, Chad was able to put the buggy to the first test up Hell's Gate. The buggy handled it with ease!

We decided to take a break and eat lunch, since we had been at Hell's Gate awhile. Prior to Chad driving up the obstacle, an ATV had tumbled end-over-end down, and we all watched them get winched out.

There are a lot of great obstacles and interesting spots, and I could have posted a bunch of pictures; but, I wanted to keep the blog post from getting too long. We moved on to the next big test for the buggy at the Escalator. After some maneuvering, Chad was able to get up the Escalator without too much difficulty. 

Towards the end of Hell's Revenge, Harold noticed some noises coming from his Jeep. This would spell the end of his trip as he headed back to Denver on Saturday. He did great at leading us through Hell's Revenge, though. This is Trudy taking on a hill towards the end of the trail.

After this we went to Potato Salad Hill to watch the buggy work it's magic up that hill using three different lines.

On Saturday, we decided to do some sight seeing through Canyonlands while taking an easy trail to start. It really had some awesome scenery. Thanks to Gary for leading the way.

We stopped at this arch and had lunch. It was a great day with very pleasant weather.

Afterwards, we ventured on into Canylands National Park to see Mesa Arch.

We made our way to Mesa Arch for some very scenic pictures.

After Canyonlands, we all met up at the RV park for some great grilling and chatter. It was another great Moab trip filled with great memories. Special thanks to Gary and Harold for leading the trail runs, and for Bill and Cheryl and Tom and Nancy for joining us even without wheeling.