(2019 Grand Teton Ep 20)
We left the goblins and traveled on toward Moab, Utah.
Moab is the gateway to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and is very popular for various types of outdoor adventure, including mountain biking, hiking and 4-wheel-drive driving.
We arrived in the early afternoon and learned all of the campgrounds in town were full. With cooler fall weather, there were lots of visitors in the area. Camping reservations are necessary during spring and fall months – something we will remember for our next time.
We continued 55 miles south to Monticello, Utah (map point 14). In 2013, we stayed at a bed and breakfast in Monticello and know what the area has to offer. With Monticello as a base, one can enjoy interesting day trips to the four corners area (where Arizona/New Mexico/Utah/Colorado touch), Monument Valley, Natural Bridges National Monument and the Canyonlands National Park Needles District. Longer day trips to Moab, Arches National Park and the Canyonlands National Park Islands in the Sky District are also possible.
We camped in Monticello and decided to visit the Canyonlands Needles District during our one full day in the area.
The temperatures were rather warm during our late September visit so we brought plenty of water and wore hats during two hikes in the park. We enjoyed four overlooks along the 2.4 mile Slickrock Foot Trail that had views of canyons, pinnacles and reddish peaks of the Needles area. We were unable to see where the Colorado and Green Rivers join at the bottom of the canyon however.
Later that afternoon we hiked the nearby Cave Spring Trail, a short trail that included relics from a 19th century cowboy camp tucked under cliffs of a low mesa, interesting petroglyphs and rock art, and a couple ladders that one must climb to reach the top of the mesa. From the top we had a panoramic view of the Needles area.
As we drove back to Monticello, we passed by Newspaper Rock, a sandstone rockface that has hundreds of petroglyphs of human, animal and material forms. It is said to be one of the largest, best preserved and most accessible collections of petroglyphs in the Southwest. Perhaps this was the pre-Internet Internet…
We had reached the point in our journey to begin the long return to Florida. Our next planned stop would be at Cortez, Colorado, where I would have my dislocated finger checked out and where we would visit some amazing Indian cliff dwellings.
Take the LONG Road... 