Moab Wrapup

April 22nd, 2026

I’m writing this whilst comfortably crashed at the Doubletree hotel near the Salt Lake City airport. A nice warm chocolate cookie and a comfortable chair have revived me from the four hour drive from Moab this morning. I was running on vapors by the time I got here. I have enough energy left to do some writing, have an early dinner, and then maybe watch some of the NBA playoffs before falling asleep. I have an 11:00 flight home tomorrow so I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn for a change.

Tuesday was my last day in Moab, and I was really feeling the effects of six days of sleep deprivation. I did not get back to the hotel until 4:00AM that morning, so I was pretty much trashed that day. I gave up any thoughts of doing a 7th Milky Way shoot, and the same for sunset at the park at 8PM. After yet another pseudo breakfast at noon (I discovered my favorite gelato shop, Elsie’s,  also did late breakfasts), I settled for one more low-energy tour of the park. No long hikes, just a drive around to see a few features i’d driven by, but not stopped to photograph. A cold front was moving in, and clouds had already started rolling in by the time I left for the park so I was glad that I went out for that last shoot the night before.

First stop of the day was the Courthouse Towers, a huge block of sandstone, with some great views of the big wall formations across the road. Spectacular scenery.

After that, I headed back to the Windows parking area – I had already been on two of the trails there for the Windows and Turret Arches, but want to see the spectacular Double Arch as well. It was just a short walk on a packed gravel trail to get to the base of this feature. Most everyone climbs up the rocky base to get into the arch – I scrambled up a bit, and found a very comfortable boulder to sit on. I was too woozy to go too much further on the steep, sloping sandstone. I made it this far without doing any damage – I wanted to make it home without any new cuts or bruises.

Funny thing about Arches – I had not seen any wildlife at all either during the day or at night, other than hearing some owls one time. As I was walking down this trail, a young couple in front of me came to a stop and shouted – snake!!. Sure enough, there was a very pretty, six for snake slithering across the trail. It was not a rattler – I have yet to identify it, but it was nice to see something other than ravens. 

I was about done for the day after that, but I had wanted to see one other area on the way out – The Garden of Eden, which has a jumble of sandstone fins and spires. I was way too tired to hike around the area, so I just watched a couple of rock climbers, attempting to work their way up a nasty looking crack on one of the spires. The lead was really struggling, and I did not really want to see him fall, so I left and headed back to town. 

I really could have gone for a good martini, or a good IPA beer or two at one of the many brewpubs in town. But, I’m sticking with my cardiologist’s orders, and settled for a really lousy non-alcoholic beer with dinner. At least the ice cream was good. I think there were more ice cream and/or gelato shops in Moab than brewpubs. Nothing wrong with that. I tried four of them – maybe I’ll go back there again to try the rest.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts about this trip bouncing around in my head, but I’ll do another post tomorrow…once I’m rested and home. Maybe I’ll have some of the Milky Way photos curated by then too.