Rockslicking Granny

The highlight of our week spent in Moab, Utah, must be doing a Highland fling under the iconic Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, in Utah.  

And it wasn’t because I was applauded for my dancing – though obviously doing an attempt at a Scottish jig over my crossed over hiking sticks was deemed one of the more unusual poses that visitors to this site attempted that morning. Posing under the hundred plus arches that can be found in the area seems to be a common activity.  By the way, arches are caused by wind erosion.

No, the highlight for me doing a jig here, was the fact that I was there at all AND had the nerve to let go of my hiking poles to dance on a ledge with precipitous drop offs on either side of me.  To reach this world famous arch you have to hike about a mile and a half on a “difficult” uphill climb over open slickrock 

slickrock

“with some exposure to heights”. And that’s the operative word.  Heights.  It’s not that I have a fear of heights.  Neither do I lack the stamina to do the climb – I don’t mind going uphill at all.  It’s the coming down.  I have a fear of falling.  And somehow the hill always looks steeper when I look at how far I could fall. Even traversing ski style to lessen the angle of descent leaves my knees shaking. 

I was therefore also particularly pleased with myself for managing up to Corona Arch and back down via several metal ladders, ropes and steps hewn into the sandstone. Of course it took me twice as long as all the youngsters who never even needed to hold on to the ropes.  But then, at least I did it.  Not bad for a 62 year old granny, right?

On the way around the steep slickrock bowl that you have to circumvent to get to Delicate Arch, I encountered a woman who was holding on to the ledge overhead with both hands as though her life depended on it.  And I realised that it was all just a matter of belief that your rubber soled hiking shoes will not slip.  This inherent confidence is what separates the mountain goats, who never think about where their next step will be, from the elephants, who ponder each footstep.  

I have elephantine tendencies. When I am faced with a new chasm, it still takes me a long time to negotiate with myself how I am going to place my two feet and my poles (my extra two feet which I take with me for added stability).  Sometimes even the poles have to be cast aside and I have to go on all fours.  

No there is nothing gazelle-like about my hiking, even if physically, I LOOK like I should be light on my feet.  Unlike an elephant, I seem to forget all the previous times I have successfully descended similarly challenging slopes and my soles and poles have kept me safely stuck to the ground.  My husband Richard jokes I have an overwhelming aptitude for self-preservation. 

Richard, unlike me, resembles the goat in the above analogy.  He is absolutely confident that he can go anywhere, driven by that need to see what is around the next corner.  I am not that motivated.  When we were visiting Canyonlands National Park a couple of days later, I decided the steep slickrock of the hill which led to the final viewpoint of Upheaval Dome ( a strange crater like gash in the rock caused either by a crashing meteor or salt dome being pushed upwards and exposed by erorsion)

was absolutely not important enough for me to negotiate.  Richard went on himself, but once the obligatory photo was taken, he felt a need to venture off track to see if he could get a better view of a nearby canyon that he had spied.  The curiosity of a cat as well as his goat-like tendencies led to him descending the steep hill ahead of him, only to discover the enticing canyon was not a canyon after all.  He then wound his way back around the base of the dome, hoping to avoid climbing back up the way he had descended.  Of course, despite his circuitous route, he eventually had to give in and face no other alternative than to get back to the track by climbing up an even steeper face of the same hill!

What this old goat forgets is that he is getting older, and his unplanned for exertions often lead to the kind of heavy breathing that frightens not only me but all other passing hikers into thinking he is having a heart attack.  Not this time, luckily for me.

The area around Moab gives access to just a small taste of an amazing array of Parks and scenery that is the pride of the USA. Areas of Utah, Colorado and Arizona were all originally part of the Colorado basin, an ancient lake that over time was covered and formed into limestone.  Geologic Plate movement forced the lake upwards at strange angles, and subsequent erosion has created the weirdest array of rocks, mesas, hoodoos, spires of amazing colours and other strange land formations that Native Americans revere, and modern Americans and tourist flock to from across the globe.  There are some 11 National Parks in these three states alone, and uncountable state parks hosting other similar wonders, and several of them are on our bucket-list.  

What better and leisurely way to visit them all than in our 5^th wheel trailer?  And we can take all the time we want…

The area around Moab also hosts the kind of stupendous scenery beloved by movie directors, and classics like The Greatest Story Ever Told, City Slickers, Con-Air, and Thelma and Louise are a few of the films shot here.

Dead Horse Point State Park is one such venue – a mesa famous for an iconic view of the Colorado River as it rounds a particularly tight bend some 2000 feet below.  We went there one evening, hoping for a more spectacular sunset than we got.  The light reflecting off the river was a bit of a disappointment – grey green rather than the cobalt blue I had been anticipating, but the view and the numbers of people who joined us for the spectacle of the changing colours on the landscape around us more than made up for it.

For me however, the most breath-taking scenery in this area, in more than one sense, is located in the part of Canyonlands we visited.  Although everything we saw during our week long stay was astonishing, the views from the Island in the Sky Mesa, over miles and miles of flat layers of rocks, fins, buttes, arches, spires and canyons, (with the Green River and the Colorado River canyons being at the lowest elevation) are absolutely stupendous. 

 

Need I say that I especially loved our walk along the mesa rim to Grand Point View overlook, to take in that mindboggling scenery?  It was mostly flat and no sticks were required. I even managed to handle the thousand foot drop beside me with a very cool head, knowing that I did not have to make any attempt at going down it whatsoever!