Rocking it in Moab

Our week long visit to Moab, Utah was filled with fun experiences. During our time there I flew our new drone a lot and found it is a new favorite hobby of mine. We also went rock crawling for a day which made it quite a unique trip.

 

The drone flying we did was done in a very wide open landscape which made for excellent views and plenty of space to practice sports mode. Sports mode is the fastest mode on our drone and at top speed goes about thirty six miles per hour. FPV drones, like ours, come with a headset similar to virtual reality goggles so that when flying the drone your entire vision is taken up with what the camera is seeing. We all had a turn on it and while not flying we huddled around the phone which can mimic the video in the goggles.

 

One day we rented a jeep and went up to Island in the Sky, Canyon Lands National Park. On the way to Island in the Sky there are two ways to get up and down, one way is a road and one is an almost road. The way we went up was the unpaved-should be one way, sort of off roading way. We all shoved the age old advice, not to look down, out the window and off the cliff while marveling at the beautiful landscape below. Once outside the national park, we had a sandwich lunch and walked across the Gemini Arches which have been wide and stable enough for people to drive across in the past. After taking the regular road down we headed over to a recreational area to experience our first rock crawling as a family. In our rented jeep there were gauges to tell at what angle the car was inclined at, the highest we saw was a forty degree angle which felt like it could have been ninety. At about half way through Fins and Things (one of the courses) I asked if I could fly the drone. We were no longer in the national park (where they are illegal to fly), so we stopped for a second and pulled it out. For the rest of our rock crawling adventure I watched and videoed from above. I found it preferable though there were many unexpected bumps because I couldn’t really anticipate any while watching from the drone. After Finn’s and Things we found a short up and down that we liked, it was called baby lions back. We spent at least an hour going up and down and around and into some water at the bottom.

The Devil’s Garden hike in Arches National park is the longest hike anybody can go on without having to have permission from the park. It was longer than seven miles and sometimes involved scrambling up and down the fins (rock formations that will one day, possibly, become arches). On the hike we saw many deer tracks and human footprints but no deer and very few people except for at the beginning and end of the trail. It was a long hike for all of us and I like to lead so we went extra fast and took a few wrong turns. It’s slightly embarrassing for all of us that up until the last three or so miles we didn’t realize the sticks that were everywhere were marking the path. Though, in our defense, the footprints of everyone who came before were very misleading. The Devil’s garden was not the only hike we went on, and though I would hardly call it a hike, the scorpion hunt we went on was quite fun.

We arrived it the spot for the hunt before the rangers who were leading it did so we waited around for a little while until they got there and then chatted with them. When the hunt was scheduled to begin we were still the only ones there. Four out of fifteen was apparently not good enough to start with so we waited ten or so more minutes until everyone else showed up. The hunt began with a talk about scorpions and staying on the trail. We all got handed a blacklight and started on the trail, some of the lights were better than others; mine was probably the dimmest of all! Though we had been told what to look for, we were still surprised when the first scorpion was spotted. It was tiny! We did not see one that couldn’t have fit on my thumbnail!

I’m sure we will all have fond memories of Moab for quite a while. We had some great first-time experiences there that I am sure we will all want to try again soon.

 

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