fleeting

The next weekend (June 6 and 7) brought cold, wet weather to the whole state: Alta got over 16 inches of snow.  H wanted to go back to Moab, knowing that we'd be housebound if we stayed in SLC; I was reluctant at first because I didn't see the point of driving eight hours round trip if all we were going to do was sit inside and read while it rained.  But Moab's forecast looked slightly less dire than up north, so we three piled into the car and drove down.

 Literally not there unless it has rained

Saturday morning it rained and rained and rained.  H and Milton looked like drowned rats when they came in from their morning walk.  The sky was so dark and the winds were fierce, with hail and thunder and lightning.  I may have glared pointedly at H once or twice while we were sitting inside reading.  There was a bit of a break in the weather mid-morning, however, so we three piled into the car and went searching for ephemeral waterfalls on the cliffs above the Colorado River.  When we got back, it got dark and stormy again for a while as the storm blew itself through and then, around noon, the sun came out and the skies completely cleared.

We could hear this one all the way across the river

Wanting to take advantage of the newly-good weather, we three piled into the car with light hiking gear and headed up to the Sand Flats Recreation Area.  We weren't the only ones with that idea and we had to wait in line for about ten minutes at the entrance station.  The ranger was cheerful and friendly as she sold us our annual pass and just a few minutes later, we were parking in the Slickrock Trailhead lot.

Like the storm never happened (except for the winds)

For something new, we started out going up and over Little Lions Back.  Although we could see the Hells Revenge trail in the distance, what we were on didn't go through so we bushwhacked on the sandstone fins and through a wash bottom to get there.  We followed the 4x4 road to the intersection with the Slickrock Trail, allowing Milton to run free only when there wasn't two- or four-wheeled traffic around.   So he didn't get to run around a lot because it was pretty busy with MTBers, jeepers, dirtbikers and OHVers getting some sunshine after the morning's deluge.

Here they come!

We made it up to Milton on Sunday, however, by going back to the Amasa Back.  Jeepers tend to get a later start than hikers/MTBers so we hoped we might see some 4x4 obstacle work on our way back done.  Amazingly, we didn't see very many people at all: a handful of MTBers and no motorized vehicles at all.  Low entertainment value but much more peaceful.

Looking into the Abyss

The route was the same as we've done before a couple of times: up the HyMasa MTB trail to the overlook, then down the jeep road.  (We did do some scouting for a possible Capt. Ahab hike in the future.)  We did meet a local (Wendy, who owns a tear-drop trailer rental company) who was MTBing with her dog and a buddy; as it turns out, she had gone waterfall-hunting along the river Saturday morning as well, before heading to the Slickrock Trail.  Genius.

Up on the Amasa Back

It was a quick trip, with just a little hiking mileage (4.06 miles for Saturday and 6.10 for Sunday).  But it got us out of the house and onto the trails - and since it was in the 40s (!!!) when we got back to SLC that night, and saw all the new snow in the mountains and the puddles in the suburbs, we knew we'd made the right call.

Another gorgeous day out there