We drove south out of Salt Lake City headed for the Manti La Sal National Forest. This turned out to be a bit confusing, because the Manti La Sal is broken up into three or four separate parts, but we managed to find ourselves a lovely spot near Grassy Lake. We parked the camper, rolled out the sunshade, set up some chairs, and poured a drink.
And then the rain began. And continued. And continued. I got a lot of reading done.
We were in the Manti La Sal for two days, and it rained for a day and a half. The last evening was clear, and we had a nice walk around the lake and explored a bit near where we had camped. All the rain made for a messy drive out, but messy in a good way.
The muddy truck took us next to Capitol Reef National Park. The visitor's center was packed (it was Saturday), so we headed down the scenic drive farther than most people went. Then, to get even more isolation, we parked and hiked away from the truck, roughly following a creek to keep our bearings. It was a beautiful hike, and S spotted some petroglyphs, which unfortunately had been vandalized by previous visitors.
A storm was threatening, so we left the stone carvings and booked it back to the truck. We found a beautiful campsite outside Goblin Valley State Park, and tucked in for the night under the beautiful stars. The storm from earlier in the afternoon never did materialize.
We started out our Sunday by visiting Canyonlands National Park, but it's such a big park and we spent such a small amount of time there that I feel like it hardly counts. Canyonlands is more correctly described as three adjoining parks: Island in the Sky, The Needles, and The Maze. Though technically they are all part of the same National Park, no roads or bridges connect the three sections. The only one we visited was Island in the Sky.
Again, since it was the weekend, the visitor's center was packed. We headed off to hike Aztec Butte and see the Puebloan granaries.
We finished the day in Moab, looking for more bikes to rent. Much to my delight, Rim Cyclery had the Scott Contessa Spark Plus that I had been looking for! We rented that for me and one for S, found a campsite from our prior trip near the north end of Arches National Park, and decided where we should ride the next day.
As the sun was rising, a van came down the road, followed by a truck. No big deal, it happens. About 15 minutes later, a hissing noise was too loud to be ignored. We looked at each other questioningly; obviously neither of us knew what the source was. Had one of the propane tanks sprung a leak? Was a tire losing air?
S stuck his head out the skylight. He came back in. "You've got to look at that." "What is it?" "Just look. You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Sure enough, I wouldn't have. The van and truck that had driven by were, apparently, the start of that day's hot air balloon tour of Arches, and they had decided to set up about 50 feet from where we camped to inflate their balloon. It was worth a laugh.
The bike riding we did that day was on slickrock, which I wanted to try for two reasons: (1) I had never done it before; and (2) I wanted to try this bike out on different terrain. The trail we had ridden in Park City was an atypically-well-maintained mountain bike trail, with rocky climbs and smooth, swooping downhill runs. The bike performed admirably, as did S's. (And that auto-seal stuff in tubeless tires really works wonders.)
We were pretty knackered after a long day of riding, so we opted against doing it for another day and headed back to Durango that night.
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