We’ve been staying in the town of Moab for a few days which is close by to two National Parks, Arches which we went to on our first day, and Canyon Lands which we went to yesterday. We’ve had a full day at each park, and then used our last day today to go back to Arches for a bit, but otherwise have a bit of a lazy day as we’ve been so busy so far and we’ve got tired legs after all this hiking!

• Total distance hiked at Canyon Lands = 7.46 miles

Canyon Lands National Park

We visited 3 different areas of the ‘Island in the Sky’ district of the NP, including:

Grand View Overlook

Green River Overlook

Upheaval Dome

This was a pretty steep climb up to two viewpoints, with quite a lot of scrambling:

Aztec Butte

This one was a bit insane, we didn’t realise how much climbing would be involved on this one getting to the very top of this hill, which involved some proper clambering up in places, and then sliding back down afterwards on our backsides.

Mesa Arch

And because we hadn’t seen enough arches the day before, they had a nice one here with a great view out in to the canyon:

Back in Moab for the evening

We went to the local microbrewery on the way home to sample loads of their beer which was really nice – we got through about 10 of their range between us (sample sizes, not pints!). In Utah the law is you can’t have a draft beer that’s over 5% so basically everything is that strength. Normally over in the US all their craft beer is 8 – 10% ABV, so these were a bit more modest!

We had some BBQ food at the ‘Blu Pig’ restaurant right next to our hotel in the evening for dinner

A quiet day with a bit of Arches National Park

We had a lazy morning doing very little today, then went back to Arches NP in the afternoon to do a couple of shorter hikes we didn’t have time for when we were last here.

Delicate Arch

Park Avenue

Tomorrow morning we are travelling to Durango in Colorado where we have 2 nights, and are spending Saturday on a scenic railway journey up in to the Rocky Mountains. Loads of pics to follow from that soon!

Si