Intrepid Trail at Dead Horse Point

One last item on our list for this particular trip was a mountain bike trail, for which we choose the Intrepid Trail System at Dead Horse Point State Park.

This trail has three hiking and biking loops, from 1 to 9 miles and varying in difficulties.
The Intrepid is the first and shorter of the three for those novice riders wanting a decent ride without rattling too many teeth -i.e. me. The loops are relatively flat with about 140 ft elevation change on the longer loop, and made of sand and rock and a few sections of slickrock along the way.

I can tell you I'm not much of a mountain biker and I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

We stopped at every overlook off course (what did you expect, ha) and I assure you they are well worth it. The view is breathtaking.

Oh, by the way, it is $10 to get in Dead Horse Point State Park.

Here are the bullet points, taken from the link provided above:

• Trailhead: Dead Horse Point State Park, 32 miles west of Moab
• Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
• Length:
• Intrepid Loop: 1.1 miles
• Great Pyramid Loop: 4.2 miles
• Big Chief Loop: 9.0 miles
• Elevation @ Trailhead: 5900
• Directions: Nine miles northwest of Moab on US 191 and then 23 miles southwest on Utah 313 to the end of the highway.

Enjoying the view...

This post concludes the Utah trip. :)

Moab, Utah

It's been a bit hectic at the house lately with starting a new job, but I do intend to finish this story arch with this post and the next (about time, I know).

Ok then, Moab.

The town was nothing like we expected. We had imagined a big tourist type town, busy with cars, people, and cyclist coming to ride the canyons. Not at all.

Moab turned out to be this neat little town of about 5,000 population with a good buzz to it without being overwhelming. We cycled out from the campsite (5 miles), parked the bikes and walked around for a good chunk of the day.

A quick search will come back with tons of sites on Moab.
Here are a couple: Moab.net and DiscoverMoab.

We stopped at the Love Muffin Cafe on Main street for breakfast.

Great little coffee shop. The service was fantastic. A couple guys were keeping up with traffic behind the counter, one handing out coffee drinks at top speed and the other making sandwiches and passing out orders from the kitchen. Someone else was walking around serving orders and cleaning up. I had the bowl of quinoa with fruits breakfast. Yum!

It got very buzy very quickly. Check out these ratings from TripAdvisor.

Corona Arch Trail, part 3

This second, the Corona Arch, is only a few hundred yards further than Bowtie Arch (previous post).

The opening is 140 ft long by 105 ft high, and apparently large enough that a small airplane actually flew threw it once.

A sandstone fin eroding over time to eventually create the arch.

Notice the "small" people underneath the arch in the second images on the left.

This is the view looking out at the canyon from under the arch.

Corona Arch Trail, part 2

This first one is Bowtie (one word).

Bowtie is approximately 30 feet in diameter and formed when a pothole met a cave underneath.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia: it used to be called "Paul Bunyan's Potty," until that name was taken for another formation in the Canyonlands National Park.

Corona Arch Trail, part 1

Because the Arches national Park was not on our itinerary this time around, and because I was determined to see an actual "arch" on this trip, we set out on the Corona Arch Trail.

After an initial climb and a sandy pass, the "trail" is marked by cairns along slickrock overlooking the canyon below, making good shoe traction recommended.

I kept stopping and looking at the landscape, trying to assimilate the utter vastness of it all. The colors were absolutely spectacular, offering up a palette of vibrant reds, oranges, and greens, all reinforced by a stark blue shy.

  

I was surprised to find this labeled a "family" trail, not because of technical hiking or climbing -it's an easy walk for sure- but because we are literally walking along the slickrock, at times rather close to the edge, and seeing little kids running around made me very nervous. 

I was more inclined to walk with a few feet of "cushion" myself.

From the DiscoverMoab site: 

- Length of Hike: 1.5 miles to Corona Arch; allow 2 hours round trip.
- Type of Hike: Constructed trail and slickrock. This is a hiking-only trail.
- Area Attractions: Corona Arch (140 by 105 foot opening) and adjacent Bow Tie Arch; also views of the Colorado River and a large slickrock canyon.
- Trailhead: Utah Scenic Byway 279, 10 miles west of Utah 279/U.S. 191 junction.

 Coming ahead: Bow Tie and Corona Arches.

Morning Glory Natural Bridge

At the end of Negro Bill Trail is Morning Glory Natural Bridge.

It is 243 feet long and separated from the cliff by only 15 feet, technically making it not an actual bridge, but rather a large alcove arch.

My initial reaction when reaching the bridge was actually slight disappointment -I was so expecting one of those fully detached arch. Nonetheless, it is impressive to see up close and particularly from beneath it.

Oh, and that intrepid explorer in right side picture?... that's me, and probably as close as you'll ever see me on this blog.  ;o

Looking up. Thankfully, nothing fell on anyone's head.

Canyon Lands Continued

Continuing our way through Negro Bill Canyon.

I mentioned this canyon following a year round stream in the previous post, making it relatively lush for what one might expect of a canyon.

Appreciate the contrast between looking ahead on the trail and looking upward to the edges of the canyon.

Canyon Lands

Late afternoon and evening visit into the canyons,
during the cool hours of the day.

Negro Bill Canyon
- Named for an early 19th century Afircan American pioneer William Granstaff who grazed his cattle here, it has retained its name for historical reasons.

It is an easy 4.5 miles round trip through sandstones, willows, cottonwoods and sandy trails. Though the recommended time to allow is 4 hour round trip, I think it took us a little over 3, taking our time.

It's actually a great place to take kids. The trail follows a year round stream with plenty of place to stop and play in the water. Kids don't have to make it all the way obviously, and we in fact did meet several parents with small 2-4 years olds doing just that.

From the Bureau of Land Management site (BLM):

• Trailhead: On Utah Scenic Byway 128, three miles east of junction with U.S. 191.
• Length of Hike: 2 miles to Morning Glory Bridge; allow 4 hours round trip.
• Type of Hike: Constructed trail with several stream crossings. This is a hiking-only trail.
• Area Attractions: Year-round stream in scenic canyon. Morning Glory Natural Bridge, which has a span of 243 feet, is the sixth longest natural rock span in the United States.

Road to Utah

Amazing sky on the way to Moab.

Trip to Utah

A few days into Utah, mid March of 2010.

Blogger Changes

Blogger is implementing changes in the way images are displayed on blogs, which basically means that at this moment, I have no idea how to post images!!!!


...  :(

Hopefully I'll figure it out pretty quick and resume posting.

update 06/2010: apparently the image upload window is back... will take advantage of it while I can.

This Is It

This is it! This should be our last significant snow fall of the year.

I took these in the yard the morning after a crazy snow blizzard that came through a few weeks ago.

It's early in the morning, so the light came out all blue... I kinda like them like that though.

Hitting The Slopes

Hitting the slopes one last time... at the local golf course. ;P

Mountain Winter part 3

Last pictures from this winter trip -though we've had a rather spectacular snow fall since, and I took a couple pictures of the yard with 10+ inches, so there might be another one or two, then... Spring pictures! Yeah!

Next trip is a few days into Utah, so get ready for that when we come back. :D

Mountain Winter part 2

Mountain Winter

Happy Trails Coffee Shop

Looking for a little morning hang-out while in Nederland, we opted for the Happy Trails Coffee Shop.

There's a great view of the town from the patio, which I imagine to be very pleasant during warmer weather.

The little round tables were a tad small for newspaper reading (our Sunday morning ritual), but otherwise very adequate for a typical "meeting up with friends" customer.

This was actually our second time in this coffee shop, and amazingly enough, both time a particularly loud-mouth, self-important male customer was present, with non-stop "sharing" of his infinite wisdom throughout the time we were there. I think the barista was getting a little tired of his attention. I would have told him to chill. Some people...

Service was great.

They serve a very good breakfast burrito and the usual suspects of pastries, including no-wheat, no-dairy. I had herbal tea.

There's also a ski / snow-shoe rental shop in the back, which I believe turns into a bicycle shop once winter season is over.

Snow Blanket

Nederland, CO - really cool mountain town. We drive up on a regular basis to visit, walk around, hike on the surrounding trails (or snow shoe, as the case may be), and even camp out.

There's a great art community with several summer festivals, the usual array of tourist shops, art galleries, and a very neat local food co-op.

Anywhere we go, we always make it a point of visiting a local coffee shop -not the bland, chain type of shop, mind you, but an individually owned kind of place.

The New Moon Bakery had been our favorite for a while now. Since the "original" owners sold about a year ago, it has changed hands 3 times... and each time brings a few changes here and there... jury still out of the latest.

Invitations

These images all struck me as having to do with some sort of invitation, in one form or another.


Images taken in Niwot, Colorado.