Friday, March 31, 2017

Spring Break Moab: Day 3: Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands Island in the Sky District



Today's adventures began at Dead Horse Point State Park. I remember going here as a kid, but being there as an adult it felt bigger. And I didn't remember all the trails you could walk along the edge. It was so cool, and such an incredible view. We met Aaron's parents there, and it was nice to have several extra pairs of hands. While I don't think my kids would intentionally climb off the edge of a cliff, they were so excited about running around and climbing on everything in sight, that i could see one of them accidentally climbing the low rock wall that separates the walking path from the cliff's edge and losing their balance.

The morning was a little windy, and rain drops were falling here and there, so this was a good place to be because the trail was flat and mostly paved, and we weren't having to climb over anything that might have been slick if the rain really started.


Almost got everyone in using the selfie stick...Ollie was too short.




Aaron's sister Lisa is an amazing Yoga person, she always takes pictures when we're on vacation of her doing tricky, difficult  poses in really cool places in nature. Lisa wasn't here, and I am only a very beginner at Yoga, but this was an awesome nature spot, so I did this pose in her honor. :) 







Next we drove into Canyonlands, Island in the Sky District, and parked at the Mesa Arch trail head and had lunch. Ruby fell asleep in the car on the way, so Debbie offered to sit with her while the rest of us hiked the trail to the arch.

The hike was very easy, I don't think anyone of any age would have a problem doing the hike. But at the end of the hike you get to the arch, which is really cool and pretty, but right under the arch the mesa drops off straight down. It's a nice cliff, and as Ollie would say, "if you fell off you'd be a goner." There isn't a wall or a guard rail or anything, just the cliff. So this made me extremely nervous and paranoid that whole time trying to keep track of all my children and make sure they didn't end up as "goners". I was particularly glad that Ruby wasn't with us, as she's one of the ones that has no fear, and is fairly hard to keep track of. Lincoln started to show some signs of being really nervous with the height, and I was actually kind of glad, that finally one of my kids is old enough to realize a potentially dangerous situation and stay back from the edge. Anyways, it was a hike Aaron had really wanted to do, and we did it, and we all survived, so that's good. 





We split up from Aaron's parents after that, and tried to decide where we wanted to go next. I had a hike on our list, but the description said that it had places with high ledges and steep drop-offs. My kids were already frustrated with us for not giving them more free-reign to run around as they pleased on that last hike, and I was afraid if we went on another hike where they needed to stay close to be safe, that they might not do a good job of listening. So Aaron and I looked through the hiking guides trying to find a place where the kids could safely climb and jump to their hearts content without Aaron and I having heart attacks. :) 

While we were still weighing our options, Ruby was having a complete meltdown because she was tired of being in the car. To try and appease her, we stopped at the Green River Overlook. The scenery was breathtaking, but my older kids were bored because it was a flat paved trail with nothing to climb on. We didn't stay long. Moments like this make me panic a little bit as a mother, because my older kids want to do older kid stuff, and my little kids want to do little kids stuff, and I have no idea how bridge the gap all the time. And of course none of them are patient with me while I try my best to come up with a solution. *Sigh*



Finally we decided to go and check out Aztec Butte. I couldn't tell from the hiking descriptions if it was going to be too hard or not, but we decided we'd give it a go, and if we didn't like it, we'd turn around and come back. There are two trails at Aztec Butte, the Upper and the Lower. We started with Lower because it was easier and because at the end of it are two pueblo granaries. 








The hike up Lower Butte went really well, and we all had a good time, so we decided to give Upper Butte a try, and I'm so glad we did. It ended up being one of the best memories of our trip. 

Upper Butte trail is a lot steeper of a climb than Lower Butte. For a good portion of it you are scrambling up the rock face following the cairns. My three older kids did just fine, and I did just fine with Cal on my back, but there were several places, especially near the top, where Aaron had to help Ollie across leaving him with an older kid, and then come back and help Ruby across. All of my kids did a lot of climbing up on all-fours, because they needed their hands to balance. But in my honest opinion, I feel like it was an appropriately challenging hike for the older 3. 

We reached a point where all we needed to do was climb up over one last waist high ledge and then we'd be on top of the butte, and suddenly I felt really urgently that we needed to go down. It was weird, and I couldn't really explain it to Aaron. I wasn't afraid. I just felt like we needed to turn around and go down. Aaron climbed up on top, to see how safe the top was, and reported that it was really flat up there and he thought we'd all be fine. But I couldn't shake it, and I told him I really needed to go down right now. He was good about it, and we all turned around and headed down, single file, with Aaron coming back and forth between me and the big kids to take Ruby and Ollie down. As soon as we got down off the rock face, and onto the packed dirt trail, it started hailing. We had almost a mile to go back to the Suburban and as we went along the trail it hailed harder and harder and harder. Aaron and I both mentioned several times how glad we were not to be trying to come down the rock face in the hail with the kids. It would have been super slippery and a lot harder. 

About half way back to the car we all started running/jogging and we were laughing, and trying to shield our faces from the hail, and the kids were having a blast. And I think this will be a happy crazy memory that we will have forever. And that's what family vacations are for. 


Once we were back in the car we just sat inside and watched the hail storm until it turned into rain. Then we drove back to Moab and met Aaron's parents at Zax, a pizza restaurant, for dinner. It was pouring rain still when we got done with dinner, so we drove through McDonald's and got ice cream cones. Then we headed back to our cabin, got in our jammies, and snuggled in our sleeping bags and listened to Harry Potter on audio book until all the kids fell asleep. 

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Spring Break Moab: Day 2: Canyonlands Needles District and Arches Part 1




Because we came up early, we were able to squeeze in a half a day exploring The Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. The entrance to that district is about an hour south of Moab, and I felt, totally worth the drive time.

Our first stop was right before entering the official Canyonlands border, to a place called Newspaper Rock. It has a parking lot, and a very short (less than 20 yards) paved trail that takes you to a rock face covered in petroglyphs that date all the way back to the time of Christ. The kids had a fun time getting out their notebooks and sketching some of their favorite pictures. We also tried to guess, or make up, a story to go with some of the pictures. It was a really cool spot.




Just past the petroglyphs, the trail continues down into a little gully. My kids played around down there for a few minutes to stretch their legs.



Stop number two was the Cave Spring trail head. This is a 0.6 mile round trip hike. It's mostly really easy, but you do have to climb up two wooden ladders. Ruby could do most of it herself, there were several places where we had to help her scramble up or down a steep-ish rock face.

At the very beginning of the hike, you walk past an old cowboy camp.



The trail follows along under the rock overhang, some places are cut in deeper than others. There is a spring at one point (probably how the trail gets it's name). It didn't have a lot of water in it when we were there, but I imagine it will once the snow on the mountains melts and makes run-off.




After reading the trail desription online, I had wondered if the parts with ladders would be too hard to do with a baby on my back, but I shouldn't have worried. The ladders are really well secured, so they don't wobble. And every part of this hike was easy, and safe, even while carrying a baby. :) There were plenty of rocks of all sizes for kids of every age and skill level to climb on and around, and all of us had a great time.









On our way out of Canyonlands, we stopped to do a very short walking trail called Roadside Ruin. The trail lead to a granary used by Native Americans to store their grain out of the way under a rock ledge, where it would stay dry and out of sight.





Then we made the long drive back through Moab and up to Arches. We got up there a little later than we had been planning on, since the park closes at 7pm right now for road construction, we weren't able to do all the hikes on Thursday that I thought we'd do. But we did get to do two really fun ones.

The first one was Double Arch, and it was SO cool. I had Cal on my back and Ruby as my hiking buddy, and the three of us were able to get most of the way to the top, all except for the last very tiny bit, so not a hard hike at all. Aaron took the four older kids right up to the saddle, under the second arch. I would say this is a pretty family friendly hike, all my kids were able to find a place to climb or play that was "at their level" skill wise, and I felt 110% safe climbing around with the baby on my back.

Also, Aaron's parents randomly happened to schedule a trip to Moab the same weekend as us, without either of us knowing the other was doing it. So that was kind of funny. They decided to come meet up with us at Double Arch.









After Double Arch, we said goodbye to CHuck and Debbie, and headed across the parking lot to The Windows, but halfway there it started to be really windy and threatening to rain, so we decided to go back to the car.

We drove down to the Balanced Rock pull-off, and it wasn't as windy there, so we decided to get out and walk the loop around. It was also very easy, and mostly flat. But the kids found big rocks along the trail and at the base of Balanced Rock that they could climb on, so everyone was happy with this hike too. :)






Because sometimes your lips dry out and you need chap stick and you can't wait until you're all the way over the seat to get it.
By then it was getting late, the park was closing, and it was time to head back to our cabin for dinner and bed.