here comes the sun

This past weekend was the first time we traveled to Moab under clear, dry skies since, well, October.  We took the day off work, loaded Milton into the truck (complete with Dramamine and extra towels for the car-sick drooling) and headed down Friday morning.  Although it got chilly - about 30 F - going over Soldier Summit, it was sunny skies all the way down.  This made us very happy.

Black dog, blue sky

It was the closing weekend of the 2019 Easter Jeep Safari week so we knew better than to try to go out to dinner.  Instead, we did some chores on Friday and basked in the sun.  Milton likes to soak up the rays but has to keep going into the shade to cool off.  He found himself a pillow on the north side of the garage, out of the sun.

Totally looks comfortable

Saturday morning we three got up and walked to Main Street to watch all the jeeps take off together.  The Safari week is incredibly well-planned and Saturday is the one day everyone lines up on the side streets to head out to their respective rides all at once.  Despite the sheer numbers of participants, it is very low-key: no revving engines or blaring horns, just Jeep enthusiasts riding off into the dirt and rock. 

Courthouse Panel

After that, H and I took the MTBs up to the MOAB Brand Trails for my first ride of the season.  H had been a couple times over the winter but this time the trails were dry and the range cattle had been moved off further afield.  It got overcast and cool but was extremely pleasant for riding.  I rode well enough (although out of shape for cycling) but my butt was sore for days afterwards - my bike shorts need more padding!

H in Courthouse Wash

Lest you think the weather had moved off entirely, it did rain for a couple of hours Sunday morning.  By 10 a.m. it cleared up, however, and H and I went to do a short hike that's been on our list for a while: lower Courthouse Wash.  It's actually not that short a hike if you do the whole thing (5 miles each way) but we figure we only did about six miles all told.  Most of the trail guides start in the park and hike downstream; we started at the mouth of the canyon and went north. 

Looking upstream

There is a pictograph panel on the west wall at the mouth of the wash, well-worth checking out even if you aren't going to hike the way.  Courthouse Wash itself is really the only canyon hike in Arches NP and it is neither well-known or well-traveled.  We could always find the trail but it isn't marked and disappears from time to time.  You're in a canyon, though, so there's no way to get lost.

Busy beavers

The water in the wash was moving right along and everything was green and lush (for the desert).  We heard canyon wrens and saw fish, lizards and lots of birds.  There were deer and raccoon (beaver?) tracks in the wet sand and we saw plentiful beaver sign, some looking fairly recent.

Tiny trees: about three inches tall

This is a beautiful, relatively easy hike with negligible elevation change but as I mentioned, the trail is not consistent and we both got pretty scratched up on our arms and legs from pushing our way through the willows.  We also crossed the wash at least ten times but managed to keep our feet dry until the end.  We only saw a few people too: two solo day hikers and a family group of backpackers - although we have no idea where they might have overnighted.

A in the wash

After getting back and cleaning up, we basked in the sun some more while we ate some lunch, and Milton debuted his new dog goggles.  He put up with them much better than we thought he might, wearing them for about fifteen minutes before he'd had enough.  We'll have to try them during a hike next time - perhaps he'll be so distracted that he forgets he has them on.

New shades

As if to make up for the nice sunshine we'd had, our drive home was through black clouds, cold temperatures and a fair amount of rain.  That was okay.  We'd been to the desert and stocked up on some vitamin D.  A little rain couldn't wash that good feeling away.

never-ending winter

Saturday was forecasted to be "partly cloudy" and turned out to be pretty much all cloudy with flurries.  Sunday was supposed to be mostly cloudy with up to a half inch of snow.  Any guesses on how Sunday turned out?  If you said completely cloudy and snowing really hard, but warm so it was super-wet, you win the prize!

It wasn't snowing too hard when we first got up to Alta but it was definitely coming down by the time we were on the first chair.  Since it was only supposed to be a half inch, I didn't bother with outer layers that were particularly waterproof.  The snow was piling up on our laps on each chair ride and I could feel the damp permeating my ski pants, and the shoulders of my jacket.  By 10:30 a.m., even my mittens were starting to soak through and I was beginning to wish I hadn't come up to ski.

Supreme chair selfie

But the snow was still really, really good - soft and deep - and it was relatively warm and there was pretty much no one there, so we stuck it out.  Amazingly, we dried out a little over lunch - when H came into Alf's, the entire front of his jacket was a sheet of ice - and the snow started to taper off in the early afternoon.  We did our last run of the season in Catherine's Area (Alta closes the Supreme chair before the others) and the snow was frankly incredible in there: super deep and scarcely tracked out.  What a difference from high season with all the tourists.

Last dance in Catherine's Area for the season

We played around in the gates off Rock N' Roll and did Supreme laps.  Around 2 p.m., the clouds started to break up and we got more sun than we had had in ages - not a lot, truly, but what there was felt great.  And just that little bit of sunshine was enough to impact the snow quality: our last run out through the front side of Collins was slow, sticky and heavy.  It finally felt like spring skiing - maybe winter is running out after all.

even better than we hoped

Here's the thing: look at the calendar.  It's mid-April. The mountains of northern Utah are still getting pounded by snow (the valleys are getting days and days of rain) - to the tune of FIFTY INCHES of snow between Tuesday and Saturday of last week.  There is so much snow.  And because it has been cloudy for so much of this winter, we haven't lost much of it to melting so our snowpack is quite healthy.

Deep!

Speaking of it being cloudy, it was forecasted to be partly cloudy on Saturday.  That forecast was totally wrong as it was completely cloudy for most of the day and also included some snow and graupel flurries.  The clouds broke a little bit around 3 p.m. but for most of the day we were skiing in very flat light (and sometimes clouds).

Just a little bit of that shed still visible

That really didn't matter, however, because the skiing was so good.  The consistent cloud cover keeping the sun at bay preserved the snow quality and although it is mid-April, the snow felt like mid-winter conditions.  Not sticky, not crusty; soft and pretty light and way deep.  H found untouched pockets that were ski pole-deep in Fred's Trees and when we went into Racecourse, it was too deep for my short Salomons to handle.  (They did great in the choppy stuff, though.)

The same sign as in the previous post.  

The recent snowfall puts it at shoulder-level

Another reason the day was so good?  The absolute dearth of crowds.  It was a little busy in the corral for the first couple of runs but after that, people either left early or just spread out and there were no lift lines.  We skied until 3 p.m., unwilling to leave that nice snow, and then stopped in at the Goldminer's Daughter Saloon for a couple of beers to celebrate.  I always like spring skiing but that was an extra special treat on Saturday.

not as advertised

You see, the forecast for Sunday was 39 F and sunny.  Not partly sunny or mostly sunny, but full-on sunny.  We were very excited about that.

The forecast was totally wrong.  Since we drove up to Alta (no more ski bus this season), I made a last minute jacket change which turned out to be the exactly right decision: there was no sunshine until well into the afternoon and, even with the relatively warm temperatures (24-36F), it felt colder because of the cloud cover.

There is a lot of snow in the mountains

Lower Collins face had completely set up overnight after Saturday afternoon's slushy conditions and after two runs of skittering across Corkscrew's ice, I wasn't willing to do it again.  H went with me to Sugarloaf and we did groomer laps there.  Things were softening slowly with skier traffic; although there weren't many people there, everyone who was there was skiing the same trails.  Because there were so few skiers, we practically skied onto the lift each run and we rarely had to share a chair with other folks.

 Seriously a lot of snow

We thought the sun might come out at lunch, but no, it didn't.  Conditions were definitely softening even so, and we moved over to Supreme.  We did laps there in the afternoon and the runs kept getting better and better.  I actually skied until 3 p.m. (!!) and my last run down Collins was brutal: my legs were tired and conditions on the front side had softened a lot.  The sun was just starting to come out, making the snow very sticky and grabby. 

H wanted to make a few more runs so I went back to the truck, changed into dry clothes and then hung out in the parking lot with my book and my beer.  The sun was in and out at this point: when it was out, it was very pleasant but when the clouds rolled in and the breeze picked up, it got quite chilly.  When H was done, he had a beer with me before we packed up and rolled down the canyon to home.  By 5 p.m., the weather had moved on and it was a lovely spring evening.  It turned out to be a great day, just not exactly what we had expected it to be.

in which we get our mountain back

The forecast for Saturday in the mountains was warmish but cloudy as the overnight storm that brought several inches to the ski resorts moved out of the area.  Alta was having Demo Days* so the base area was a little busy.  But it wasn't crowded anywhere on the mountain or at Alf's at lunchtime; the IKON Pass hordes have moved on to other pursuits.  Yay!

Where the sky and the ground match

We saw peeks of sunshine in the morning, then the clouds rolled in midday and it got downright foggy in the afternoon.  We did four or five runs on Collins to start, the new snow softening things up nicely, plus it hadn't really frozen up hard overnight.  Then we split up for a bit until lunch and I cruised Sugarloaf until then.  Razorback was very nice: they had groomed it flat and it was lovely and soft.  On one chair ride, I saw H skiing out of Chartreuse; he was the only one in there and later, he confirmed that that was for good reason as it just wasn't very good. 

After lunch, we did laps on Supreme together.  The very best snow of the whole day was on the last pitch of Big Dipper, on skier's right where there's a double fall line.  The snow there was just creamy - hero snow for me.

I skied out a bit around 2:15 and caught the 3 p.m. bus down; H kept on until closing (when the weather changed again and a small graupel storm moved in) and took the 5 p.m. bus.  Those were our last bus rides of the season as the program has finished up.  (Don't ask me why they stop running the buses on Saturday and not Sunday.  It makes no sense to me.)

*  We can't understand why they do Demo Days so late in the season when it's spring conditions.  People want to demo powder skis - not frozen-slush-in-the-morning and slushy-slush-in-the-afternoon skis.

portal overlook

It took us just a little while to get going Sunday morning as we had to wait for the rain to stop.  But stop it did and around 10 a.m., H and I were headed to the Potash Road for a short hike up to the Portal Overlook.  Somehow we have never done this trail, despite its accessibility.  The trailhead is just a few miles (approx. 4) down the road at the Jaycee Campground; there are about five parking spaces with more room to park along the road.  It is about a 4 mile out and back, although you can connect to the Poison Spider MTB trail if you keep going past the overlook.

Colorado River view

The trail starts out mostly level, paralleling the Potash Road.  There were cacti just waking up from the winter and both sand and rounded river rocks underfoot.  We even heard a canyon wren's trilling call.  After we passed the trail register, the trail takes a few switchbacks and then starts to climb - steeply - up the sandstone ramps.  We were almost directly across from the Moab Rim trail that we had revisited just a few weeks before.

Working our way up

Once we got to the overlook, there were sweeping view of the north end of the Moab valley, the Sandflats area, Arches National Park, the mountains behind the Book Cliffs and the snowy LaSals, in addition to the muddy Colorado River far below.

Northeast view from the overlook

As I mentioned above, the trail actually continues past the overlook to connect with the Poison Spider trail.  The MTBers tend to come from that way, descending the way we had just come up.  We didn't seen any cyclists but we did see the warning signs. 

Be careful

The Portal Overlook trail is one of the most dangerous MTB trails in Moab.  In a couple of spots, the trail is only three feet wide, with a sheer wall on one side and a serious 200 foot cliff drop off on the other side.  People have literally died trying to ride their MTBs here.  It was nerve-wracking enough on foot.  If you don't have a head for heights, don't venture past the overlook. 

Be really, really careful!

For us, we just went out past those two extremely exposed spots and then turned around and went back the way we came.  Going down those sandstone ramps was much quicker than churning up them but we did stop for some time to watch three jeeps maneuvering their way over obstacles across the river on the Moab Rim trail.

The Portal Overlook is a great little trail if you don't have much time but want a workout and some spectacular views.  In the summer it will be very hot until late afternoon/early evening when the cliff walls shade the trail from the sun.  We haven't been able to pin down exactly what the portal itself was historically - our best guess is that it's where boat traffic used to enter the town from the river - so if anyone knows, please leave a comment.

hidden valley

We went to Moab and the sun came out!  It wasn't that warm - a cold front had moved through Thursday night and the daytime temperatures barely reached the mid 60s - but it was wonderful to see blue skies.  It was still chilly in the shade but out in the sunshine, it was glorious.

A and M about halfway up the climb

To soak up some of that sunshine, we took Milton on a six mile (approximate, as we forgot the GPS) to Hidden Valley.  The trailhead is on Rim Rock Road, off of Angel Rock Road, as you head out of town on Route 191, and shares a parking lot with the Pipe Dream MTB trail.  We had hiked a portion of that trail back around Christmas, when it was too icy to try the climb to Hidden Valley.  This hike is best done in the spring and the fall as it is too hot in the summertime.

The well-used trail doesn't waste any time going up via switchbacks through the rockfall below red rock cliffs.  It isn't a long climb, however, and we got up to the valley in about thirty minutes.  The valley is just beautiful: very green (this time of year) with grasses and sagebrush, with a sandy path down the center and surrounded by cliffs.  This is a popular trail but wasn't overrun with people; we maybe saw twenty other hikers and trail runners all told, of various skill sets, many with dogs.

How green is my valley?

After walking through the meadow, there is a low rocky pass that divides Hidden Valley from the Moab Rim trail.  This is where you can pick up a trail to a bunch of petroglyphs.  We hadn't done our research ahead of time, however, and didn't know about the rock art panels until after we got home.  Instead we went over the pass and down into the Behind the Rocks area, picking up a jeep road but not seeing any jeeps.  Motorized vehicles are allowed on that side but foot traffic and (I believe) MTBs only on the Hidden Valley side.

Apparently it always snows in Moab

After some explorations, we retraced our steps, going back down the way we came up.  There was plenty of parking lot activity to observe during our post-hike beers, although it started to get chilly as the sun was heading behind the cliffs.  Milton did pretty well on the hike: he pulled H a bit on the leash on the way up but decidedly less so on the way down - and he was all tuckered out afterwards.  We were very pleased with this little hike - the valley was just so pretty - and will definitely go back to check out the petroglyphs that we missed this time.