A Walk in the Woods, Monday 10th August

Elk Creek Campground, Monday 10th August.
Mile 1531

It was COLD overnight. What a shocker. We put the heating on in the wee small hours, and roused Tom sufficiently to layer fleece over his pyjamas. In the morning we all ended up reading in bed squashed together like sardines, until the sun had broken through.

An ambitious walk - we said boldly to the Rocky Mountain ranger that we usually did four or six miles or so - Tom ended up doing his longest trek ever at 7.5 miles. The Green Mountain Loop sounded lovely, but in fact it was pretty much tree bound and after a little while, you've had quite enough of pine forest. We've really been spoilt by Utah, where even finding a place to dump the trash usually meant at least one sweeping vista, a brace of interesting lizards, chipmunks scooting underfoot and some kind of bird of prey gliding overhead. There was one gorgeous view on this walk as we got up to the aptly named Big Meadow. But otherwise, we yomped on for ever and ever and ever, through a forest of pine trees - at least half of which seemed to be perishing from some kind of infestation. We climbed about thirteen hundred feet - to 9900 feet, but it all seemed somewhat sterile.

'PT's picnic provisions' have got more extravagant by the day. To keep us going we had tuna sweetcorn and dill pickle sandwiches, grape tomatos, clementines, peaches with slices of manchego cheese, granola bars, a haunch of venison, a tureen of lobster thermidor and a baked Alaska. And trail mix. (PT: so that's why my jeans aren't getting any looser...). We also kept going with silly games - 20 questions and Black White Yes No - and Tom was a trooper. He is also keen on jokes at the moment though doesn't always understand them. He's especially keen on the one where the mushroom is a "fun-guy", so he told us this one during the walk: "A mushroom goes to a party, knocks at the door and the guy won't let him in. 'Why not?' asks the Mushroom. 'I'm a fungus'!!

Wildlife total today - one deer, a tree full of wood pigeons, and a patch of wild strawberries. Not quite up to the awesome vistas, cliff edge adrenalin, and rattlesnake sightings we've had so far...

Had a nice coffee stop in the modest town of Grand Lake, a bit of grocery shopping, and campsite supper of salmon fillets, new potatos and asparagus. And a big choc ice for Tom. All's well.

Shooting Down the Mountain, Sunday 9th August

Rifle Falls to Glenwood Springs to Grand Lake, Sunday 9th August.1325 miles.

Our lively neighbours were indeed lively until late. And pretty confrontational about it ("we're a big group and we've been here since Thursday and you are in an emergency space" So there...) We found out upon leaving that they were a Sunday School group, lady pastor and all...

But the rest of the day made up for it. Heading east, we couldn't resist an early stop in the tinytown of Newcastle, with Patti's cafe on its Victorian Main Street, offering fresh coffee and home made brownies and the like.Ooh it was good. The man behind the counter was a round fellow with twinkly eyes and a limp. He made Tom a giant vanilla smoothie. "Patti" came to see us sitting at a table on the pavement later, full of smiles and friendliness. It washed away the bad taste of the night before. We had five minutes in a neat little playground before leaving. Sobering to see the names on a memorial to local coalminers killed in three major disasters dating back to 1896.

Then it was the family day out at Glenwood Springs Amusement park. Park at the bottom of the mountain, take the cable car up to the top, and for a fistful of dollars, you find you've spent hours on Wild West theme rides. I want to make a line out of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but heck they were all good.

Mum's favourite - the Canyon Slide - like a bobsled whipping down the mountain side - except it's on rails, so you can really take the brakes off and hare down, screaming your head off (yes that was me, not Tom, who was sitting between my knees, saying "you don't have to go quite so fast really").

Dad's favourite - Laser Tag - which involved him and Tom running round in the dark shooting at stuff as far as I can tell...

And Tom's favourite - the Wild West adventure - beautifully corny - you get into a rickety old stage wagon which is kitted out with a lifelike screen at the front, and bumps up and down, as if you are on actually the ride that gets hijacked and shot at and gosh-darn-it near runs into a freight train. He LOVED it, and had a second go, where he amused the other family squeezed in there by diving for cover in advance of every shoot-out.

We also managed to get Tom bungee jumping, and we fought to take turns on the Bucking Bronco. I don't know how much more cultured a vacation this could be...

We left it pretty late to get back down the mountain, and off on a three-and-a-half hour trek eastto the Rocky Mountains, pulling into a nice leafy spot at Elk Creek Campground under a very starry sky.

Moab Utah to Rifle Creek Colorado.

Saturday 8th August.

Moving day. End of canyon country day. Crossing the state line from Utah where we've had such awesome experiences. And ending the evening in a little country campsite where for the first time since Vegas, we're surrounded.

We seem to be booked into a spot in the middle of a grand family reunion. In fact, it looks like an ad for fifties America, picture perfect kids running round on bikes, while their tanned and healthy parents stoke up the barbeque. Still to find out, ATOW, whether they tuck up to cosy campfire sleep, or go the British way and crack open a few crates more beer.... I'll be optimistic! But R and I have admitted, we feel claustrophobic, after all that time carving out quiet space on clifftops and down in those gorgeous red rock canyons.

In a way, this is the day - half way through our trip - where we start coming back to real life. We bounced through California - LA to ghost town Calico. Had two completely different experiences in Nevada - neon lights and wild rides in Vegas followed by that lazy hazy day on Lake Mead. And Utah - already we want to come back! We've been thinking when Tom's a bit older we can do some back country hikes, taking tents along with us. He'd love to rock climb - could I get over my fear of heights? In THEORY I love the idea of sliding down into those slot canyons and hiking or wading our way out. I ought to just go for it. In practice, I might have to sit in one of those hippie caffs with a strong coffee and a good novel while the boys go wild...
Anyhow, even for a transition day, it's been busy. Tom and I hit the pool in the Moab RV park this morning. Cold cold water. Blissful hot tub, where I sat drinking in the mountain view while Tom acted out his latest 'action movie' in his head.

Then we drove north east the scenic way, taking the road which loops round the base of the red rock buttes, following the curves of the wide green Colorado river, skirting the Arches National Park. Every now and then a raft or kayak slid by. It was a stunning half hour drive - but so much par for the course in the neighbourhood, it didn't rate a single mention in our guide book.
Crossing the border from Utah, we had planned to stop for lunch and do a worthy hike at the Colorado National Monument. On the way off the freeway, we swung by a McDonalds with a massive glass fronted PLAY PLACE, and oh, what the heck. When we pulled into the car park, Tom was literally speechless, then literally jumped out of his seat and punched the air for joy. There you go. How to make your sprog love you in one easy lesson.

Right next to said restaurant, was a dinosaur museum. And that was fun. Animatronic mockups. A movie - "When Dinosaurs Roamed America" - that He watched in absolute stunned silence. A mock quarry where he could play paleontologist and "dig and brush" for bones. And some pretty amazing bones too, from the region that's had some of the biggest and best discoveries in
the world.

Then back to the freeway for a burst, and off again to the tiny campsite of Rifle Gap. We'd booked the last of 12 spots about five months ago. Hoping it would be one of those isolated places where it's just us and the stream sliding by. But who were we kidding? It's a Saturday in August!

Still, an unexpected bonus. Tom was still full of beans after supper, so we set off for a quick explore up the trail that starts opposite our site. We came out at the foot of three waterfalls. The next dirt track took us behind the waterfalls. And the next - above them! The park had constructed a couple of little walkways (with big iron railings thank god) that leaned over the water. On the way back, we found a series of big caves underhanging the cliffs - bats! That's enough thrills for one night.

We'll be throwing ourselves into tourist wonderland tomorrow, when we show Tom the adventure park we've found in Glenwood Springs. I predict a day of chaos and calories. Good night all. P

Our last evening in Utah...

This is at the top of the plateau we climbed in the jeep...

Three go wild by jeep! Moab, Friday

Friday 7th August Moab.

We all slept in this morning after a warm and windy night. But yesterday's showery afternoon had given way to clear blue skies and we watched the mountains soaking up the morning sun, as we had breakfast.

We had booked a jeep for the day, but it took a while for us to get going and by the time we got to the Jeep place there was a queue, consisting of three excited young women and five voluble Italians who were hiring three jeeps between them with endless questions and translations and going-over-that-bit-again. I fidgeted in line and one of the rental people kept apologising and re-assuring me that he would have us on the road quickly.

Half an hour later I was looking over a pumped-up, soft-top Jeep Rubicon with big tires and a show-off paint job that was to be ours for the rest of the day. Until that is, we spotted that it had a broken shock absorber. The Italians and teenagers had already made off in the other jeeps and it looked like the off-road experience we had booked six weeks ago was going to end in the parking lot. The nice rental guy rang another outfit though who had one left and within another half an hour we were heading towards the mountains in a bright yellow jeep with fat tires.

Our route was to take us back to Canyonlands and along some of the tiny white tracks we had seen down in the valley floor from the mesa-top viewpoints the day before. To get there we took the Shafer trail, which was originally carved out by uranium miners decades before. We made for a Potash plant with its dazzling blue evaporation ponds, and then the road became a red rutted track and the fun began. The track twisted up the mountainside slashed with dried out washes and studded with boulders. We lurched and shook and Tom thought we were in a rollercoaster. He couldn't quite believe we were driving up a mountain. Nor could we frankly and sometimes we weren't entirely sure that the track we were on was actually a track, but feeling utterly in the midst of this giant wilderness was intoxicating.

We lurched and bounced ever-upwards, until all of a sudden we were skirting one of the ledges half way up to the great plateau. The river was a thousand feet below and the plateau was a thousand feet above us. It was a white-knuckle ride with only a few feet between our wheels and the crumbling edge of the track. Naturally it was during one of these teeth-gritting stretches that Tom piped up with "is it my turn to drive now?".

We made a diversion to a stretch of the White Rim Trail which cuts seventy miles through the desert and takes at least two days to drive. We did four miles of it along an ever-narrower track scratched out of the side of the cliff-face. We stopped at a natural arch overlook and PT and I got out of the jeep with wobbly knees, our mouths moving but no sound coming out.

We re-traced that bit of the route and of course we met other vehicles coming in the other direction which meant we had to push into passing spots on the VERY EDGE OF THE CLIFF. It was fine, really. There were literally several inches of rubble between us and certain death. Then back on the trail which became a series of steep switchbacks taking us to the top of the plateau. The view became ever more jaw dropping, with the horizon stretching further and further as we lurched our way up the rock face. Then we were at the top, on what felt like a mirror-smooth asphalt road, leaving the park.

The way down was on the Long Canyon trail, and soon we had left the tarmac and were going steeply down a sandy track with the canyon walls just a few feet away on either side. Round a corner and there was an enormous long boulder which had fallen across the track many years before - leaving just enough room to drive under the bit that was leaning against the cliff face. All too soon we were rejoining the road to Moab with a brief diversion to put our hands in some real actual dinosaur tracks.

We had the jeep for 24 hours so after a supper stop we headed back out to another trail to watch the sunset. We climbed up through great waves of slickrock for about fifteen miles before turning off onto a sandy forest trail to the plateau rim. The view across the broad valley below was stunning; the evening light illuminating buttes and mesas for miles and miles. We all ran around in the boulder field at the top for a while before winding our way back down the track. The sun set in front of us, burnishing all the slickrock a soft salmon pink. And so back to the now closed rental place, where we washed off the jeep and put the keys under the mat, picking up our RV for the short drive back to the campsite. We did about eighty miles off-road and it will be one of the great memories of this trip.

Dead Horse to Moab. History and bookstores

Thursday Mile 1140

Tonight's beer: Dead Horse Amber Ale (because "you can't beat a Dead Horse"). So we are in Moab after another top day which you are all no doubt bored stiff of reading about. "What, no irritations? No relentless tedium? No complete disasters" Not really, no. Or perhaps I should say, not yet...

Our friendly Frenchman returned this morning to pick up his medicine. We charged him for the use of the fridge, obviously. He'd been up early to watch the sunrise but we were at least dressed when he came by so we could pretend that we'd been up for ages as well. Switches, hatches, step, Tom and away; first to the Dead Horse Point viewpoint which we missed yesterday. Its on the very tip of the promontory with a 100 mile+ view of gorges and canyons, all massive and silent as far as the eye can see. Its hard to process such enormous scenery but we spent a long time trying before heading back down the road to the National Park, under grey skies and a constant cool wind.

Dead Horse Point is really just a short spur off the road to the main event in these here parts: Canyonlands and its "Islands in the Sky". But after a longer than expected walk yesterday afternoon we decided to be less ambitious today - especially with the weather looking less than promising. So there were little side trips, first to Mesa Arch, which you approach at the level of the top of the arch which is shearing away from the rim. We eased out on our tummies to look into the yawning gap below.

Back to the RV and off to Aztec Butte. This cone of sandstone has the only historic structures in the park. There is a trail to see them and after a cuppa in the RV, we struck out in the drizzle to see them. The walk starts along the desert floor; a soft red sand trail winding through prickly pears and Juniper bushes. Then it skirts one small butte before climbing the second - really quite steeply. Tom was in his element of course, though even he was a bit worried about how we would get down this sheer, smooth slope.

Eventually we climbed over the rim and onto the flat t0p of the butte, where a series of cairns pointed us down over the rim on the other side, with a rather precarious trail clinging to the slope. It wound through rocks and then along a very narrow path with a sheer drop on one side, before suddenly widening, with great wave of pale sandstone curling overhead. Set back in one corner was an ancient prehistoric granary; a low stone structure in the corner of the cave. It was such a lovely peaceful setting, looking out across the desert, hundreds of feet below. The increasingly narrow trail under the rim passed more of these little structures in their soft pale caves. It was a magical place and we could really imagine families living there centuries before. T was very taken with them and Philippa felt quite emotional when she discovered them hidden away, and still so pristine.

Going down was indeed a challenge but no limbs were broken in the making of this blog, and we found another couple of structures up the second mesa, before charting our own way down the sliprock, in what had now become a very hot and sunny day. It was an enchanting walk, made all the better by the fact that we had it to ourselves.

And so to Moab, thirty miles away, where we found an independent bookstore with a New York Times for herself, a used thriller for me and a friendly bookstore owner who didn't have the book Tom wanted, but called across the street for us and found they had it there. T ran over with me and was THRILLED to find Diary Of A Wimpy Kid book 3, already waiting for him on the counter. He was so happy and enthusiastic, the store lady got quite misty eyed about it and turned to her colleague saying "I just want to give it to him". Two people's days were made by the encounter. I got a seventeen dollar haircut around the corner and talked politics with the young barber for a bit, before scooping up PT and T and heading back to our campsite overlooking the mountains. T and I braved the gusty rain showers in the pool and watched a double rainbow form and melt away as the late afternoon sun won out. Supper, bed and a Jeep tomorrow!

Dead Horse sunset