To start the purpose of this trip was to attend the wedding of one of my nearest and dearest friends from college in Arches National Park. My husband and I along with 3 other couples (friends from college as well) decided to make an "extreme" weekend out of it.

We flew into Salt Lake City which was almost a 5 hour drive into Moab as the quickest route into town had a semi-truck carrying explosives tip and explode leaving a 3 story crater 45 feet in diameter in the middle of the road. And according to the news no one died, WOW is all I have to say. Next time I would spend the extra money to fly into Grand Junction a mere hour and half drive.

So day 1 checked into our condo L3 in Rim Village for 150 bucks a night and it slept 3 couples (3 rooms and 2 bathrooms) the 4th couple had a dog and stayed at the Kokopelli. The condo was spectacular, nicely decorated, spacious, 2 car garage, pool and hottub, and less than 10 minutes from downtown. A great deal for 50 bucks a couple. We checked out the area places to rent equipment for biking, kayaking, and jeeping. Then later went to the Slick Rock Cafe which I loved, but my husband was quite indifferent to.

Day 2: 8 am hike with wedding guests to Delicate Arch. Beautiful spot with tons of views along the way and hilarious as all our friends were back together again and didn't miss a beat. Some of the other visitors to the park seemed a bit puzzled with such a large non-tour group hanging out together.

We ended the hike by 10 am and went to Canyon Voyages where we had planned our kayaking trip down the Colorado River for that afternoon. We were quite astonished to find out we had been lied to about the trip. It turns out that 2 rafts that fit 13 people are accompanied by 4 kayaks and people would then trade in and out of the kayaks and rafts. We were very disappointed as we were specifically looking for kayaks. The COlorado River at this time of year has at most class two rapids which are really just decent size waves this time of year. So we cancelled the river trip as rafting down the river with people we didn't know didn't sound enthralling.

We then decided to check out ATV rentals. For 6 people we rented 2 4 wheelers and 2 dirt bikes and double up on the ATV's. THey were 100 bucks each to rent so we decided to split the cost of 4 instead of getting 1 each which I'm glad we did. We spent 4 hours out in Canyonlands (I think) and went up as far a Hurrah Pass. I have never been on a 4wheeler before and had an absolute blast! There were tons of little areas with trails to go around an jump little bumps and hills (I'm quite surprised to say I did this and loved it. The ride up the mountain to Hurrah Pass (4,000 feet up) was a great but slow as the road was wide but there were quite the cliffs in some spots so we took it slow. Once we got to the top of Hurrah Pass we stopped and took in the spectacular views and a few photos and decided to head back as we had wedding events to attend that night. So after turning in the ATV's and washing up in the McDonald's restroom (we were a mess)we drove up to Dead Horse Point to meet all the wedding guests for a sunset we didn't see as it was cloudy. The Point was beautiful and we actually saw the trail where we had been riding earlier that day which was very cool. After spending an hour at Dead Horse Point we raced back to the condo and got ready for dinner at the Moab Brewery with all wedding guests which was very fun.

Day 3 Saturday we woke up for the wedding at 9 am in Arches Park on the La Sal Lookout which was beautiful. There were 50 people in total there and it was by far the most beautiful wedding I have ever been to. After the wedding 8 of us ended up kayaking the Colorado. THe same company that wouldn't take us on a kayaking tour rented duckies or blow-up kayaks and took those on our own. We left 2 cars at the start Big Rapids and 1 car at the BLM take out beach. It was less than half the price to rent the kayaks versus a rafting tour and much better in my opinion. However in high water in the spring I would have opted for a rafting tour as a inexperienced white water person. The kayak ride was great as an ex-coxswain I ended up in the back with a friend of one of our doubles and we really all just drank and floated down the river for the most part. It was by far the most beautiful kayaking trip I think I could take. We had a few experienced kayakers and rafters in our group who all agreed the class 2 rapids were sad but you couldn't beat the view. They want to go back in the spring day for an extended river trip. The river was busy but not packed by any means as it's mid-season for traverlers to Moab in August. I think everyone on the River was French except for us and one other small private group of kayakers. One of the rafts on the river had all pre-teens and teen-agers in it and were throwing buckets of water from raft to raft and onto other kayakers. Luckily one of the guides warned us as we passed that we were about to get doused. All in good fun but I wasn't thrilled about muddy water being thrown on me. The kids looked like they were having a blast though. My friend Gina's smirnoff went from clear to quite murky from the water but of course it was still drinkable

We were told the kayak trip was a good 3-4 hours. We mostly floated and it took us 2 and half hours. My husband almost tip backwards in a small rapid. The experienced white water guy that he is wasn't paying attention and was floating backwards and got stuck on a rock. His kayak was nose up in the air. It was quite funny to watch him stuck like that for a good 20 seconds. Serves an experienced white water rafter for getting stuck like that in class 2 rapids I guess. We finished at the BLM take out beach and Logan our friend with the car here paddled up last and said "well I have some good news and bad news" we took the bad news first. The keys were locked in the car at the point we dropped in at... the good news he had a great time, that got a chuckle out of us but cost us about 20 minutes in trying to pack up. We found a hitchhike back to the spot from some fellow kayakers who had themselves done them same things earlier that week.
We then rushed home showered and got ready for the reception at the Sunset Grill. The food was very good even the "geographically challenged salmon". Again no sunset as it was cloudy. It was very cool though to see a thunderstorm off in the distance. It lightening for a good half and hour and looked like it was just pouring somewhere off in a canyon.

Day 4: (my first anniversary) we slept in and then took mountain bikes to Klondike Bluffs. Supposedly it was a beginner hill. Well maybe I wouldn't have biked it instead of hiked the bike up half the hill if I had any kind of lung capacity. I really haven't been run or worked in the last few years but geez were we sucking wind. The guys were able to bike up most of the hill however. Once we FINALLY made it to the top we hiked into Arches National Park and up to the Bluffs which was gorgeous and very peaceful. It was amazing how serence it was up on those bluffs. The ride down was half an hour versus the 2 and half it took us to get up the mountain. However the ride down was quite fun with all sorts of rocks and little jumps. While we were biking one of the couples went ski diving and had a blast. We then went back to the condo and actually used the pool for the first time which was relaxing a first for our trip. We went out of our way to go to a place with a pool and we used it once. But that one time was worth it. We went Arches after that with our group of 8 and watched the sunset through the clouds at windows which was very nice (lots of bats that time of night) and then to dinner at Pasta Jays which we all thought was very good.

We all referred to the weekend as our "extreme" weekend and it was very fun and jam packed. The guys want to go back to get on the river when its high and do slick rock. All in all I feel we really saw Moab and I don't feel as if I missed anything. I loved it but wouldn't go back until my daughter was a teenager.

I should mention we had great weather it average about 92 and the previous 2 weeks we were told it was about 114 degrees so we made out there.

Thanks for reading
Megan

Megan,

What a wonderful wedding that must have been! I enjoyed reading your trip report.

Just to let you know, Hurrah Pass is not in Canyonlands National Park and ATV's are not allowed in side Canyonlands National Park, so I doubt the ATV rentals would have advised going into the park.

If the road you though you were on was on the same side of the river and below Dead Horse State Park, then that was the Shafer Trail.

We've driven a jeep wrangler in the Klondike Bluffs area. That's quite a rough trail! Did you make it to Tower Arch?

Utahtea

Sounds like a blast! While I read your report, all I kept thinking was, "they did all this in that HEAT?" Boy, you did get lucky! When we were there last July it was 106 which feels like a blast furnace.

Utahtea:

I didn't think we were in Canyonlands but couldn't remember where we went. Yes you are right about it being Shafer Trail. I'm exhausted today! Yesterday we spent all day traveling and picked up our daughter at 7 pm. I'm not sure if we hiked in as far as Tower Arch or not since we didn't take a map in with us. We pretty much hiked into the Bluffs and back. I'm guessing from the Park entrance where we left the bikes 20 minutes roundtrip.

thanks for all your ideas. I printed a lot of the Moab Threads and took them with us on the trip. I will have to use the fodorites more often in trip planning. I came upon this forum on a fluk looking for moab info as I didn't really know too much about the area other than the Arches and Hopi.

Megan

I enjoyed your trip report. It sounds like you had great weather. I can't wait to go back to Moab someday!

Hi Megan,

I'm glad you all had a wonderful time in Moab. It's a great place for all kinds of play.

If you really want to do whitewater, then the CO river around Moab is never the place, even in spring. You can, however, do a trip with many of the Moab outfitters to other parts of the river and other rivers.

The Grandaddy of them all is the Grand Canyon, but the biggest bang in the shortest time is Cataract Canyon. Many Moab operations will take you downriver either by jetboat or other means. Then you do 1 - 3 days on a typical Cataract trip. The last day is the BIGGIE. Class V.

Other good trips are Desolation Canyon and Westwater Canyon. Labyrinth Canyon is a fun kayaking trip, very gentle, but awesome rock art.

Come back again!

Did you see the dinosaur tracks along the Klondike Bluffs trail? My kids - including the 45 yr old loved them. As we were headed out there was a beautiful double rainbow over Arches.
After our trip last month, my husband is seriously considering moving to Moab or at least within a 1/2 days drive.