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.