Thanksgiving Photo Dump
Happy holidays, everyone! It took a while for me to go through all of the photos we had from our trip to Moab over Thanksgiving, but here’s a photo tour of our Thanksgiving weekend. FYI, this is a longer post even though it’s mostly photos. Thanks for reading!
Thanksgiving Day - Arches National Park
After fueling up at what claimed to be a North Carolina-style BBQ restaurant on Wednesday night (they did have the vinegar-based sauce like they had in Calabash growing up visiting Joe’s parents), we woke up early on Thanksgiving day and hiked a total of 13 miles, starting with the iconic Delicate Arch. Arches National Park is probably the most popular of the five national parks in Utah, so it wasn’t all too surprising that it was pretty busy while we were there too. This is why we get an early start and abide by what should be known as a hiker’s golden rule - “Star after 8:00 and you’re late.”
We were sad that we didn’t get to spend the holiday with family, but the red rocks were a pretty incredible distraction. We did get to call our families after hiking, which was nice. Moab Brewery was packed for Thanksgiving dinner, but the beer was good and we were lucky that the tour group party of 40 came in as we were on our way out. All in all, not a bad Thanksgiving at all.
This is not Delicate Arch, but we climbed up here and took a photo of delicate arch through this tiny arch.
The photo cropped weirdly with the description below it, but can you see the arch? Apologies for the glare - the sunrises here are blinding.
Ta-da! Delicate Arch
Oh look, it’s us.
Thank you to the nice man who took our photo.
Nature is wild.
Petroglyphs! These are from the Ute tribe (who Utah is named after) circa 1650-1850 AD. Pretty cool, huh?
After Delicate Arch, we did a loop trail called the Devil’s Garden that featured a number of different arches. If you’re really not into arches, you can probably stop reading now because that’s pretty much all there is at this park.
This is a personal favorite, a rock formation called “Parade of Elephants.”
Black Friday - Canyonlands National Park
After a 13 mile Thanksgiving Day, we decided to do it all again with an 11+ mile Black Friday. Canyonlands was less crowded than Arches, but just as stunning. Here, we did a bunch of shorter hikes that ended up racking up the miles pretty quickly. It was another great day!
Oh no, who’s that?
Little rock zits
Only 30 minutes from Arches, but a totally different world. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but those drops are deep.
Some of the photos just look better left-centered like this.
Aztec Butte. We climbed up there to see the ancient Pueblan ruins at the top.
The view from the top
What’s left of an ancient Pueblan house. Another offshoot of this trail had an ancient granary, but there were too many German tourists in it so we didn’t look at it up close.
More buttes off in the distance.
What even is a butte? Seems like a smaller, flatter mountain.
What a lovely rock ravine. This one’s from a 6 mile loop we ended the day with called Neck Springs.
Pretty unique terrain all in one trail.
We trail ran a lot of this because we were running on fumes and pure adrenaline and it seemed fun at the time. In hindsight, it was fun. Call me crazy, but I would 100% do it again.
You can still take in the views while you’re running.
This right here, my friends, is one of the coolest things ever. It’s called biological soil and is a mixture of cyanobacteria, fungi, lichens, moss, and algae. Together, this little black blob helps prevent erosion by forming a web that helps collect water and nutrients for plants. You wouldn’t even notice it if you weren’t looking for it, but I read about it on one of those informational signs at the park and then I could not stop looking for it.
It’s a shame because it takes years and years for the biological soil to grow and then people come in and unknowingly step on them, ruining decades, if not hundreds of years, worth of growth. I don’t know why but I think these things are fascinating. I would make Ian stop so I could look at them when there was a big patch or a particularly large one. The bigger it is the older it is, so you have to appreciate the fact that a half-dollar sized one of these things is hundreds of years old.
Okay, I’ll stop geeking out now. Here’s an article from the National Park Service about biological soil if you’re a weirdo like me and want to learn more.
Saturday, November 27 - Dead Horse Point State Park
Our final stop on our Moab weekend was Dead Horse Point State Park, conveniently located on the way to Canyonlands National Park. The scenery here was closer to Canyonlands but still unique. We hiked another 6 miles here, rounding out our 30 mile total for the weekend.
Fun fact: the thin blue lines that look like bodies of water are, indeed water, but it’s been treated blue to collect the salt.
Oh, hello.
Pretty cool, huh? Despite the gross swamp river water.
Our shoulders were so sore after wearing our packs all day for three days straight. It was great practice for backpacking, though!
BONUS Sunday, November 28 - Friends are Fun!
On Sunday, my friend Rachel from back home happened to be in the area and we accidentally went on a 7 mile walk. After clocking in almost 40 miles over the course of the whole weekend and spending time with friends, I gotta say this was a great Thanksgiving.
Only 17 more days until we come home for Christmas :) Love and miss you all! Happy holidays!
