prince's plume

 For whatever reason, while thinking about our Moab week, I decided to front-load the week with hiking and then focus on road riding later on.  To that end, I decided to do my big hike on Sunday.  I knew Milton would be still be recovering from his Saturday eight-miler, and H wanted to do a road ride on the bike path, so it was a solo hike for A.

Prince's plume

I did the Hidden Valley/Moab Rim "loop," which we've done several times before.  I started from our house and walked to the Jackson Street trailhead for Pipe Dream.  We had left our hiking poles in SLC so I concentrated on keeping my hands up as much as possible to keep my fingers from swelling too much - finally ended up doing the alphabet in ASL throughout the hike.  

Typical desert scene

At the Hidden Valley trailhead, I followed the trail up to and across Hidden Valley (couple of trail runners with dogs there), then dropped over the pass to the Moab Rim trail (several side-by-sides).  After going down Sand Hill (and having to empty my shoes at the bottom) and through the wash, I texted H from the Moab valley overlook.  By the time I got down the Moab Rim trail (about ten jeeps and side-by-sides), H and Milton were there waiting for me with my clean shirt, sandals and, most importantly, snacks and beers.

Eight miles in

We had lunch at home and spent the afternoon reading and doing jigsaw puzzles.  After Woody's for beers at 5, it was dinner at home and a couple of neighborhood walks for Milton, who met his first Great Dane (exciting!).  There were also lots of buzzards in the buzzard tree (also exciting!)

Stats:  H 25 mile road ride, 1:25 hours; A 10.1 mile hike, 3:45 hours.