THURSDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2023

(Moab, UT)

Andrew was soundly asleep this morning, so I waited until 0840 to do the coffee brewing/curtain opening routine. We had decided to go out to breakfast today and, by the time we had got ourselves sorted and down to Gloria’s, it was heading towards 11am. Still, we had a good breakfast, which set us up for the day. And ‘up’ is the key word…

We drove down Potash Road, to the JayCee campground and parking area. This was the trailhead for the Portal Overlook trail. The sign at the trailhead said it is a 1.5 mile hike. We set off, and passed through a little wooded area, where we saw a rock squirrel, and more lizards (possibly side-blotched lizards). We reached the trail register. The sign here said it was now a 2 mile walk…

The trail goes up, steeply, climbing about 900 feet in 1.25 miles. Parts of the trail are sandy dirt, parts are slickrock slabs, and still other parts are sandstone rocks and boulders.

The view looking back down the trail provides wonderful views of the Colorado River, while ahead is a view of the looming sandstone cliffs high above the trail.

At the end (or at least the end as far as we are concerned) is a view over the Moab Valley. Arches National Park is to the left, with the Windows section very visible, below was our hotel, and to the right are the La Sal mountains. We enjoyed sitting for about half an hour, just enjoying the view, and watching more mountain bikers descending the trail.

We returned back down the trail, as the sun started to move behind the adjacent cliffs. We made a slight navigation error, meaning we walked the last quarter of a mile asking the road rather than through the woods, but it didn’t make much difference. Back at the car Andrew said he’d forgotten how hard that trail was…

We drove back into town, made some arrangements for tomorrow and then went back to our room for cookies, crisps and a cup of tea. We hoped that the skies would clear for later, so that we could go star gazing but, in the meantime, we went to the Spoke on Centre for dinner. One tasty veggie burger/fish and chips later, we were ready to head out again.

We drove up to Arches, where we parked near Courthouse Towers. This was a new spot for us to try some night photography. I reckoned (hoped) the Milky Way would be aligned with the Three Gossips. It did!

Timing the photos between cars was almost a challenge – there are a lot of cars going back and forth in the dark! After taking various shots, we returned to to our room, to enjoy a beer and relax. We’re going to have a day off from hiking tomorrow…

[trail video here: https://vimeo.com/880706654]