UTAH
Arches National Park - Lions Park Bike Trail
After Canyonlands we headed over to Moab. We stayed at Moab Valley Resort & Campground which was absolutely for the best because it is QUITE cold in Moab in February. The cabin is pretty utilitarian but it comes with a space heater and at 40 bucks a night it is well worth it! It also comes with a grill out front and walking distance to Lions Park
We crossed the road (be careful here – it’s a busy road with four lanes) and crossed the bridge over the Colorado River.
There are trail markers indicating if you keep walking along the river you’ll enter Arches National Park. This is a pretty cool and fairly short trail that’ll lead you along the river.
There is one section where you are ducking under arches of trees (heh, get it?)
There was one woman jogging through here where we wondering how she dealt with the trees and the cactus!
The end of the trail is not marked, you basically figure it out once there’s no obvious trail and the rocks get harder and harder to climb over. There is one place around here that looks like people jump off the rocks into the water but for us it was way too cold.
We headed back in the nick of time and got back to our cabin before night fall. It was SO windy on the way back though! I believe all told our hike was three or four miles. Sadly my fitbit died literally the day we left.
For dinners we planned on making dried food that only required boiling water which today included those bags of premade spanish rice that you can either microwave or cook on the stove with a few tablespoons of water. We added cut up smoked sausage and broccoli which resulted in something nearly like jambalaya. It was so good! We were not allowed to burn wood I believe due to the season so bring your gas stove!