On our first night (Friday) we got into Moab rather late but we hoped to go to Canyonlands National Park just to check it out. We got there a little after the visitor's center closed, but we still enjoyed some amazing sunset shots AND nobody was around - it was fun!
Canyonlands is all about - canyons!! Most of our shots in this park are ones of us basically standing on the edge of a cliff - Ramin and I are both NOT afraid of heights - so we weren't freaked out at all.
We found a cool hole in the rock so I told Ramin to stick his head in!
Near the visitor's center at Canyonlands. Straight drop off over that edge.
Aren't the colors amazing with the sunset in the background?!?!
The next morning, Saturday, we spent the entire day in Mesa Verde. In fact, we actually stayed at the lodge inside of the park for easier access :) It was awesome. If you haven't heard of Mesa Verde before, perhaps you've heard of the "cliff dwellers" and the pueblo Anassazi indians?!? If not, you may recognize some of the photos below.
This is Cliff Palace, the first tour we did in the morning. It was a pretty steep hike up and down, but it was a VERY short hike and not hard. This place was awesome!
After Cliff Palace, we drove a bit in the park and reached the trailhead for Balcony House. This place was pretty cool and a bit different from Cliff Palace. For one, the hike was a tiny bit more intense and definitely longer. We also had to climb a few ladders, including a 30-foot one! Ramin did a great job of capturing me climbing up the multiple ladders :P
Here I am waiting for the tour to begin. Basically, we had to hike down behind where I was sitting.
The 30-foot ladder - piece of cake!
Cool shot of a little window inside the structure. BTW, I failed to mention that all of these ruins were built around 1200 A.D.
Climbing up a shorter ladder.
Here's Ramin just hiking up the side of a cliff - there's a fence there for a reason and the "steps" are just carved into the rock face.
The final ladder! It's a long way down.
The next stop was Spruce Tree House. This hike wasn't too bad although it was our longest hike of the day. We had to hike down from the top of the mesa to a cool cliff dwelling at the base. This place didn't include a guided tour, so it was the dwelling we were able to "explore" a bit more freely. Obviously, there were lots more people around too.
There were a few other dwellings you could see just from driving around the park and stopping at various overlooks. I don't recall all of the names but here they are. I think the one directly below is "Tower House" or something because of the tower - maybe it was "Square Tower".
This is a far away view of Cliff Palace I think.
The next step was "Coyote Village". Ramin and I both loved this super easy walk to find this village because there were absolutely NO people around but us! It's funny how people always stick to the major "touristy" spots.
One thing to note about the pueblo indians, they always built "kivas" which are the round hole structures built into the ground. They were used for ceremonial purposes as well as for shelter in the winter. This village contains a lot of them and Ramin was able to get in a few for pictures.
The next stop was "The Mansion" - this was one of the largest structures we found.
Some more walking/driving led us to "Megalithic House" - Ramin took a shot of how Chris would look if he were with us :) Megalithic House was really just a kiva covered with a building. Nothing too spectacular - we felt it didn't really live up to it's name.
Back in our hotel room at the lodge we saw a lovely blue pinyon jay - we even saw a flock of these cute little blue birds earlier in the morning. They're blue because they eat the juniper berries!
We took our obligatory entrance picture at the end of the night on our way to dinner.
Next up - MOAB! The obligatory entrance shot! Thanks to the ladies for taking our pic (we would have just used the tri-pod but these ladies were taking forever to get out of the way :P)
So Ramin and I have both hiked to the Delicate Arch a few times. Most people do the typical hike where you can go to the "bowl" below the arch and even walk up to it...well last time Ramin was there with his brother he noticed a guy across the canyon standing on a cliff...Ramin wanted to go there so they all found there way. For this trip Ramin wanted me to go there as well. He knew the hike would be tough for me (and it was) but he was unsure if I'd be able to do the last little part necessary to get to the top of the ledge....needless to say - I DID IT and I made it to the most extraordinary view EVER!
This is the final pic of our hike before we did the hardest part...this is where I took a rest and where Ramin wasn't sure if I could finish the rest.
We set up the camera on top of a rock - it was WAY too windy up there to use the tripod.
Can you believe how lucky we were with the beautiful sky?!?!
In pictures it's so hard to tell...but those horizontal lines below the arch basically indicate a flat wall cliff! We are super high up and there is a HUGE canyon in between where Ramin and I are and the arch itself. Pretty scary but amazing.
This picture kind of gives you a bit more perspective of the magnitude of where we were.
Some fun with perspective!
AMAZING!
The hike itself only took us about 2 hours. We drove through the rest of Arches National Park and saw some more sights but we didn't stay too long because we wanted to hit up Canyonlands more since we'd never explored that park and we'd been to Arches numerous times.
Final stop of the trip - Canyonlands National Park!
There were a few very short hikes in this park that we did on Sunday. Nothing major at all...we found these scraggly trees that I thought were cool.
This was our first destination - called Mesa Arch!
Here's Ramin sitting on top of Mesa Arch. He didn't really pay attention to his surroundings very much but after he climbed down he realized there was a vertical drop below him AND in front of him!!
This was the backside of Mesa Arch!
And this was the front of it! A nice little gap in between the top of the arch and the actual cliff!
THIS is what Canyonlands is famous for of course!
The very final hike of the weekend was called Upheaval Dome. It's called that because it's basically an inverted dome with some "upheaved" salt....we hiked to the top and were able to look down into it!
So that was our trip to Mesa Verde and Moab. By far one of my favorite trips we've done. Actually, all of our trips are fun but this one was really great because it was spontaneous and packed with tons to do!
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