desert heat

 It's been awfully hot here - but about the same temperature in Moab as in SLC, so we ran away to Moab for a long weekend.  We didn't even escape the blown-in smoke from the California wildfires that has been choking the Salt Lake Valley: the Moab valley was so full of blown-in smoke from the Colorado wildfires that we couldn't even see the LaSal Mountains.  (Utah hasn't had the scale of the wildfires in Colorado and California but we've had a disappointingly active wildfire season.)

Doesn't look too smoky there

Because it was so hot, our hiking was all repeats - trails we've done many times before.  I wanted to get out and give Milton some exercise before it got too hot each day, but I didn't want to breathe too much smoke either.  I had hoped to get up into the LaSals where it is always cooler but the poor air quality didn't make that attractive.

Hiker dog

So Saturday morning we did the Hidden Valley lollipop: up and across Hidden Valley, down along the petroglyphs on the red cliff wall, then looping back up via the main trail and back out through the valley.  There were only five other cars when we got there: one was a dog walker on the Pipedream trail; three trail runners and one hiker accounted for everyone else, which meant we had the place to ourselves.  Can't complain about that.

There's a lot going on in this one

Back before noon, we hunkered down, reading and waiting out the heat.  H finally got tired of being indoors around 6 p.m. and braved the 108 F in the shade.  I waited for it to drop to 100 F before joining him and Milt on the patio.  I'm crazy but not that crazy.

Red rock walls