Over the holiday weekend we headed down south for our annual February Moab trip! I love Moab. It's such a fun place! We got to hike around the national parks, drive through the red rocks, and enjoy the warm sunny weather. It was such a nice escape from winter! We visited lots of fun areas around Moab, and of course, Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
We arrived in the afternoon after driving all morning from northern Utah. We stayed at the Adventure Inn, a cute little motel right near the center of town. We loved being able to walk to all of the shops and restaurants in downtown Moab. Moab is such a fun city, it's so cute and has the greatest shops!
We headed out to the desert to find some cool rocks. Daylen and I love rockhounding every time we go to Moab, and we usually find some pretty cool rocks. We ended up finding some interesting doorways in the hills and went down to the Colorado River at sunset! It was a good start to our trip. The river was definitely higher this year than last year at this time, but we did see an entire car under the water!
The next morning, we woke up early for our big day at Arches National Park. We missed the crazy lines at Arches since it's February, there weren't many crowds. We went straight to Delicate Arch Trail to hike up before the heat of the day! I love this hike. It's a little under 2 miles each way, and a lot of hiking up hills. It's one of the most difficult hikes in the park that you don't need a permit for. But, I love it! The trail has a variety of different landscapes you hike through, and a great area to sit once you reach the arch. We ended up sitting at the arch for a while to rest and talk and take some photos. Thank goodness we had my HydroJug for enough water on this hike!
After our big hike, we drove up to the far end of the park to see Fiery Furnace and Devil's Garden. We ate some snacks at Fiery Furnace and sat in the warm sun. Then, we headed down to Double Arch. Last time we hiked near Double Arch but we didn't hike up to it. It was so gorgeous! Barely a hike at all. So worth it!
When we got back to Moab, we were super hungry so we decided to walk to an early dinner at Dewey's Restaurant. We haven't found a restaurant in Moab that we really love yet, so we wanted to try new places this trip. Dewey's is brand new! Maybe we ordered the wrong thing, but our burgers were not great. I don't think we'll be back, at least for burgers.
After walking around to some shops, we found the Moab mural that we posed by last year and got a photo of both of us by it. I love how cute it is! We also visited the Moab Rock Shop, my fave.
The next day we woke up to clouds outside. Kind of a bummer, but it was still fairly warm out. We headed over to Canyonlands National Park to try a new hike, Aztec Butte. In Canyonlands, there isn't a ton of info on trails and many are missing from the map. It's one of the two least visited parks in Utah (along with Capitol Reef), and is split in to many parts with hikes, ATV trails, and overlooks. You can't see most of the park without an ATV. We weren't sure what to expect from this trail with the limited information we had received from our map. We were blown away at how cool it was! As we hiked up to Aztec Butte, we stopped at the Granary, an old Native American pantry. It was so cool! I couldn't believe I hadn't heard about it. It was a little hard to find even.
Then, we hiked up the entire butte. I was not expecting this! It was super steep and a sheer drop-off as we hiked up to the top. It got really windy on the butte, and I was a little scared at the top of falling. Once we finally got to the summit it was so worth it! We could see for miles over the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands. There was even a ruin at the top that was only marked as "Structure" on the trail map. It was so cool! We had some great views.
On our way back into Moab, we stopped at the Green River Overlook in Canyonlands. Even though it was starting to get a little stormy, it was great to see into the main canyon where the Green River and Colorado River intersect.
After eating some lunch in our hotel, the weather got a bit more windy and cold. So we decided to go on a drive to the tiny town of Castle Valley about 20 miles east of Moab. It was such a gorgeous drive through red rock towers! We got to see the famous towers in Castle Valley that Daylen recognized from old western movies. I'd love to go back next time and spend a bit more time here!
We were ready for a good dinner when we got back so we decided on a place I'd seen online and wanted to try, Pasta Jay's. We shared the Manicotti and it was AMAZING! I loved Pasta Jay's. I will definitely go back next time!
The next morning we headed back home early to get Daylen home in time for class. We always like to stop at a few places in Salt Lake City like Harley Davidson and Scheel's. I was so excited when we went to Scheel's and saw the new stainless steel and glass HydroJugs! It was great to see them in person. Click here for my link for the Hydrojug website. We also ate at In N Out, my favorite place. So yummy!
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