metal masher

A long holiday weekend meant an extra day in Moab!  We finagled our schedules to allow us to be on the road a little after 2 p.m. on Friday, which got us to Moab a bit after 6, which allowed us to snarf some dinner before walking over to Woody's.  Which allowed us to have beer.

Beer = good

Although we had been hopeful that we might see the sun, since we were in the desert and all, the forecast was looking decidedly cloudy.  It was much warmer than it has been all winter, however: low 50s F, which seemed nearly balmy after all the days in the 20s that we've been having.  We let it warm up a bit and headed out towards Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands/Island in the Sky.  There were definitely more people in town and at the trailheads than we've seen for a while as we're moving steadily towards the busy season (i.e., March through November); this means we need to knock off some of the more popular trails before the hordes arrive.

Metal Masher - sounds so ominous!

We turned off 313 onto the Gemini Bridges road, passing just a couple of cars on our way in.  I had hoped we could get to the actual Gemini Bridges / Crips Hole area, but the road started getting sandier and rockier than we were willing to risk the Subaru.  So we backtracked a bit, found a wide spot in the road to park, and headed out on foot on Metal Masher, with Milton ranging ahead.

Shoulder season: between snow and green

Metal Masher is a 4x4 road with some routine dirt roads and also some wicked gnarly sections (Rockchucker, Mirror Gulch and the infamous Widowmaker).  We were only planning to walk a portion of it and used a cut-off before we saw any of the really rough stuff.  This is a very popular trail and there is no way we'd want to be out on it when the off-roaders are out in force.  As it is still the slow season, we didn't see anyone else until we were back at the car after our hike, when a parade of 20+ jeeps went by.  They all waved at us.

Easy walking

Since we were on a dirt road, the walking was really easy.  Milton must have done double the mileage H and I did, racing back and forth along the road and plunging into the sagebrush after small critters (real and imaginary).  After we took the cut-off and were heading back to the car, there were lots of tumbleweeds fetched up in the road and Milt got quite a few stickers in his paws.  He's very patient, though, and if he can't pull them out himself, he'll sit quietly until we can remove them for him.  (This has confirmed that we need to get him some booties to protect his paws from both the abrasive slickrock and all the desert thorns.)

Range cows

Just before we finished up, the road led us through a small herd of range cows.  Some of them looked very pregnant and one had a calf with her who couldn't have been more than 48 hours old.  While that cow quickly led her calf away, the rest of the herd was unimpressed with us.  Milton didn't chase them (thank goodness) but instead walked up to one of them and just stared at her.  When she turned and walked away, he started to follow but H called him back and he returned to us right away.  Cows are not Milt's jam, apparently.

Hike stats:  5.86 miles; 1:58 and 3.0 m.p.h. moving average / 2;10 and 2.7 overall; 410' elevation