Part 1: Colorado

The first night camping was at Great Sand Dunes National Park (GSDNP). I had long heard about the epic scene; solitary desert hills hidden inside the Colorado mountain range. My hopes were surpassed.  Imagine on one side of you there exists lush green mountainsides topped with the jagged grey rock of the Rockies, and upon performing a 180 degree turn all you can see is the dry oscillations of sand dunes sprawling into the horizon. Well, you just imagined GSDNP. It was insane! The only natural precession to such an event is the obvious climb the dunes. 

The quintessential hike at GSDNP is a fairly self-guided one, in which you hike about 2.5 miles up to the highest dune. I'm sure the true highest dune fluctuates with the wind, but the trailhead supposedly points to the winner. Or you can just kind of guess and make your way up, either way works. On this day, I learned a cool new equation:                                                               

 SAND + WIND = PAIN

I know, it may seem obvious to the more desert-inclined of you, but to us this was new. I highly recommend covering every part of your body that you can if you plan on undertaking this a hike up these dunes. My bare legs were constantly attacked by flying blasts of sediments, our ears and eyes penetrated at any crack in the imperfect seam made by hat, beanie, and sunglasses. Hiking up loose sand is also extremely difficult - by the end of our road trip, we both still classified this hike as the hardest one. Despite all of this, the view at the top was astounding, and we hung out in a zone of minimal wind for a bit before heading down to rinse off in the outdoor showers (COLD) and make dinner.

The next day we packed up and left, our foe defeated and our hunger for sand quenched. We had previously decided we wanted to summit a peak, or at least get close, while we were in the Rocky Mountains. So we found one, and endured the 8 mile round trip hike to the saddle point in the mountain; not the true peak but good enough for us. We could look north or south, either way our altitudinal superiority was evident.

The next destination was somewhere a bit more peaceful; we drove deep into the canyon of White River National Forest and camped in between the high red cliff faces and beside the meandering cold river. A fairly uneventful night besides a slight fear of bears inspired by a sign that read                                                                "LAST BEAR ATTACK: 5 DAYS AGO"located at the entrance to our campsite. We played it smart with locking up our supplies and leaving out no interesting items. The site was pretty, and in the morning we walked by the dam and enjoyed dew on the grass, preliminary rays of warm sunshine, and neighboring children jumping in the surely chilly water. Then, west towards Utah.

Part 2: Moab

First of all, I am required by good faith to mention Colorado National Monument (CNM), which we stopped at along the way to Moab. A short detour off of the main highway, CNM provides a scenic drive up to beautiful cliffs and views of the surrounding landscape of valleys and canyons and more distant mountains. 

The campsite in Moab was a bit different than those that came before it. It was sort of a communal situation, with a public kitchen and shared spaces, tent campers, RVers, and even a few hotel-type rooms available. It also had laundry services available, and a nice shower. All this at a decent price and great location. Ok I'm starting to sound like an ad. You get it, it was great. After arriving and setting up, we found a nearby lake which was almost certainly man-made but certainly beautiful and necessary as well, inflated the paddle board, and floated out into the middle to enjoy the perfect sun and high walls of the Moab vallley. I debated whether there was snow on the far-away mountaintops. 

Sleeping in a bit longer than planned, we packed our day bags and left for Arches National Park. Since we were staying at the campsite another night, it was a stress-free morning.  Once through the entrance station and the initial tight curves of the entryway, the full-blown immensity of Arches widened before us. We planned to drive out to the end of the road and hike Devils Garden, but we exhibited no rush along the way. Seemingly impossible rock structures dotted the land to our left and right; the sweet ombré of weather-beaten sandstone tempted the driver to look away from the boring road, a reminder of the insignificance of our pitiful human creations (that was a bit much I know, but I've been reading Desert Solitaire).

We eventually made it to Devils Garden, where we trekked through the 8+ mile looped hike in the increasingly unpleasant heat. They say bring more water than you think, and they're right. We got a little lost at some point, because the trail is marked by little piles of rocks and we were mislead by some chaotic evil-doer. I'm thankful to them of course, because we did end up in a section of the park probably unvisited by most travelers. It did however add a mile and an hour to the hike, and subtract a cup of water from our bottles, but in the end we relocated the proper trail and made it home just fine. Too tired to explore more of the park on foot, we drove to the viewpoint to see Delicate Arch, and left back to Moab. After some downtime we managed to get back up and go on a hike to find a secluded waterfall along a nearby stream, and placed our sore feet in the cool water and forgot all about the heat of the day under the chill of evening.

Canyonlands was the following morning's endeavor. Still tired from the previous day, our courage only allowed for a short 2-mile hike to see a giant crater with a sharp rising formation inside, Upheaval Dome. They say it was made either from a meteor impact or erosion of a salt cavity and subsequent slamming together of rock. The scale and perspective was mind-boggling; we couldn't decide whether it was 100 feet down to the bottom or if 3 football fields were in our way. Next we drove out to some scenic views of the canyon, and once again the scale was insane. You look out over the distance to see a crack in the ground, far below, colored white. The signs tell you it is around 1000 feet below you. Then you notice below that, inside that deep crack, is a river, meandering its way south and west all the while taking tiny amounts of sand along with it.  The sign tells you the river is another 1000 feet below the white rim of the intermediate rim. I truly cannot warp my mind around the proportions of this landscape; to me it was like the Grand Canyon's immensity multiplied by ten. Not its beauty necessarily, but surely its grandiose.