in which we only got our feet wet the one day

It is finally cooling off enough in Moab to take the dog for hikes in places that don't have year-round running water, if you don't go during the heat of the day.  Which is not to say that we didn't do an early morning Mill Creek hike, because we did, Saturday morning.

Not a cloud in the sky on Saturday

We got there 7:30ish, with a handful of other cars in the lot.  Because we like to make a loop when we can (Milton doesn't really care but I like loops), we went out along the rim trail, then dropped down and continued upstream to the spot I think of as the "beaver floodplains" because it got flooded by a beaver dam that one time.  We crossed the creek there - the water is definitely cooler than it has been in recent visits - and went downstream on the other side, crossing back over at the cowboy hot tubs.  Since it was Saturday, we came across a bunch of other folks heading in as we were heading out.

Surveying the slickrock

I'll just add here that each day - Saturday, Sunday and Monday, because we took that day off - H and I got on our elderly town bikes and rode 16+ miles along the paved bike path: from our house, across the Colorado River on the bike/foot bridge, up to the entrance to Arches National Park, reverse course there but turn left after the bridge to go out and back to the end of the bike path along the river, and then home.

Shadowlands

On both Sunday and Monday, Milton and I mixed things up slightly by going up to Sand Flats Recreation Area to hike.  SFRA is fantastic and although it has certainly been discovered, I appreciate the fact that it has not gotten quite as discovered as Arches, Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point State Park (all of which are also fantastic, by the way).  

Little rocky ridge

Both days we parked in the Slickrock trailhead parking lot.  This trail is for MTBers, dirt bikers and hikers; four-wheeled motorized vehicles are not allowed, although the Slickrock trail does share some terrain with the Hell's Revenge 4x4 trail.  Milton and I did the Slickrock Practice Loop ("Just as hard" but only 3+ miles instead of 9+) and then walked out on the actual Slickrock trail to the Abyss Overlook to see what we could see.  On Sunday, we saw some MTBers successfully riding some gnarly ascents; on Monday, we saw very dark clouds approaching and limited our time out there before the storm moved in.

Why?????

This last photo makes me laugh.  When we got there, there were three other vehicles in the lot so I parked smack dab in the middle, away from everyone.  When we finished our hike, there were about ten vehicles in the whole entire lot ... and three of them had parked right next to me.  Literally the whole lot was available and they parked right there.

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