A long weekend for Christmas? Yes, please, and we drove down to Moab after work on Wednesday: there was a northern Utah storm scheduled to come in and we wanted to get over Soldier Summit while it was still dry. This time of year, we had to do most of the drive in the dark but, for us anyway, dark roads are a lesser evil than snowy/wet roads. When we got into town 8 p.m.ish, I was surprised to see so many cars at a number of the motels lining Main Street - this is supposed to be the off season!
H was already on vacation but I had a couple of hours of work to get through before my time off actually begain. After that was done, Milton and I drove up to the Sand Flats Recreation Area and parked at the radio tower for a short hike. We went out Fins 'N Things to the Grandstaff Canyon overlook. It was overcast and cool, but definitely warm enough whilst moving. On our way back, we decided that we hadn't been out long enough and took some time to explore a couple of side washes, then turned left (instead of right, back the way we came in) onto FNT. We went out a little ways, exploring more washes. While we were poking around, a group of five side-by-sides rumbled by on the jeep road; we sat on a sandstone dome and watched them but they never even saw us.
After getting back to the car, we stopped in at the Slickrock trailhead so M could eat some breakfast and I could pound a beer. There were around five other vehicles there: a couple of dog walkers, one MTBer with two huskies and a van-life dirt biker. From there, we did a couple of quick errands (liquor store and City Market, both busy) before heading home to clean up. Milton headed straight to bed when H and I strolled over to Woody's for a beer: they were going to be closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so we wanted to support local businesses while we could. (We managed to support more local businesses on Xmas Eve by going to the Spitfire.)
On Friday, Christmas Eve, it was again overcast when we got up. H and I went straightway into developing our Bloody Mary recipe. This took some time so it was late morning before Milton and I got our stuff together for a hike. H was at that time neck-deep in a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle so we waved goodbye as we set off.
It was sprinkling when we left the house. By the time we got to the Moab Rim trailhead - I had chosen this trail because I figured it might be a little cleaner being more rock than sand - it had upgraded to light rain. I waffled for a minute as I didn't have anything waterproof to wear: both H and I had forgotten our raincoats when packing for the trip and I hadn't been able to find my poncho. But we were already at the trailhead and it was fairly warm (low 40s) so we went for it. Amazingly, we weren't entirely alone out there. There were three other vehicles in the lot when we had gotten there. M and I met one solo hiker and then a couple with three dogs coming down as we went up the Stairmaster trail (very nice dogs and M was glad to say hi), and there was a solo guy going up the 4x4 road just ahead of us.
I had hoped to do the Moab Rim loop at the top - out the 4x4 road to Tire-test Hill, down Sand Hill and back through the wash - but by the time we finished the climb, both the dog and I were pretty wet and I figured we'd get chilled if we kept going. We stopped at the overlook (no view except for the very low cloud ceiling), said hello to that solo guy, and headed back down the Stairmaster. At this point, it started raining harder: more than light rain but less than a New England soaking rain. The coolest thing was that there were now all these ephemeral waterfalls that hadn't been there on our way up less than an hour before.
Being completely drenched by the time we got back to the car, both Milton and I got a little chilled as I tried to dry us off a little. Luckily, the drive back is short and we warmed up quickly once in the house. The rain stopped a half hour after we got home.
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