Karen and Tom Wanderings

Our next destination was Moab.  Since this visit was in the fall, it gave us the opportunity to visit the La Sal Mountains.  Our previous visits to Moab were in the spring, and the La Sals provided an intriguing backdrop to many of our views, but were snow-covered, making them inaccessible.  The La Sal Loop Rd is a scenic drive of 50-60 miles, twisting and turning through the mountains.  We took an additional side trip to hike up Gold Knob.  "Gold," I believe refers to the aspens in the fall, which were absolutely brilliant.  The hike itself was of a much more familiar nature to us than our desert adventures ... up, then back down.  The weather was a variable, and we got hit with a white out, then hail on the upper reaches of the hike (so, no summit view!).  But by the time we reached the bottom, it was very pleasant again.  The road drops down and then through Castle Valley before heading back along the Colorado river towards Moab ... with s...

Next, we visited the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park for a couple of days, revisiting one hike (Peekaboo Trail) and covering some new ground, too (Kesler Park Overlook Trail).  Great hiking, with lots of wild rock formations, changing around every corner.  Both days, approaching afternoon thunderstorms kept us hustling back to the car.  We were mostly successful, except for a few sprinkles the 2nd day.  Our accommodations were another first ... a quite deluxe glamping yurt.  It kept us cozy during a pretty intense storm one night! View from Peekaboo Trail Rocky Domes from Peekaboo Trail Hoary Tansyaster along Peekaboo Trail Glorious hiking along Peekaboo Trail Rock tower along Peekaboo Trail Karen after crawling through the "Peekaboo" window Approaching Storm on Peekaboo Trail Our yurt! Kesler Park Overlook Trail Towers above Kesler Park Overlook Trail Needles from Kesler Park Overlook Trail View from Kesler Park Overlook Trail More Ph...

As we continued our way north, we spent a day or so in the Monument Valley area of the Navaho Nation.  Karen had snagged a camping spot for a couple of nights there, so we were pretty excited.  The tent site had epic views, but unfortunately, the spots were almost on top of each other.  We did the drive through the valley in the late afternoon, and got up close and personal with some of the buttes and spires, then watched the sunset.  Beautiful!  Since we were in the middle of nowhere, Tom got up in the middle of the night to try some night-sky photography (with very limited success).  And he got up again to catch the sunrise.  Once again, quite beautiful.  After an early morning hike down around one of the buttes on Wildcat Trail, we decided to leave a day early, since (a) we'd pretty much done what we wanted to do there, (b) in was quite hot, and (c) the camping situation was less than ideal. On our way out of the area, we made a quick stop for ...

From the Hopi Reservation, we headed (with keys firmly in hand) to Canyon de Chelly in the surrounding, and much larger Navajo Nation.  This vast canyon was the cultural center of the Navajo, and their famous last holdout as the Native tribes in the West were being cleared out for white settlers.  Arriving in the afternoon, we drove along both the north and south rims, and hiked to the White House down in the canyon ... the only place in the canyon that you can visit without a Native guide.  In the morning, we did a driving tour into the canyon with a guide for 4ish hours, and even then, didn't get very far into the canyon.   We again had an excellent Native guide (Reggie) who gave us lots of good insights into the history, culture and religious significance of some of the features.  Interestingly, the many cliff dwellings located in the canyon were constructed by the Ancient Puebloans who occupied the canyon for several thousand years before leaving (for u...