Oh The Fun We Had In Moab, Utah

OK, so I teased you a little bit on our last blog post about Moab and all the fun we had.

Let me just say this, WOW! Moab has a lot of activities to do and two weeks was really not nearly enough time to do it all.

This will just give us an excuse to go back there. Oh darn.

Moab is a town of just over 5,000 people however it hosts millions of people every year.

People from all over the world, yes I said world, come here to explore, hike, rock climb, raft, off-road, mountain bike and so much more. Known for it’s rock formations and off-roading trails, Moab hosts several worldwide competitions throughout the year. It also has some of the most beautiful scenic byways in America. It truly is a unique place and we cannot wait to go back.

One of the things really we wanted to do was some off-roading with a Razor. There are so many different trails to choose from, one cannot possibly do them all in one visit. Without having ever driven a Razor, we felt it was prudent to take a tour and see the area before we rented one and went out on our own. This was a good way to get used to the machine and what it is capable of.

We took a sunset tour with Moab Cowboy and they were great. They had no issue with us hooking all our GoPro’s up onto the machines and David even took along the quadcopter. The tour took us on the Hell’s Revenge Trail. The name in itself can be daunting but they assured us that they take people on this all the time. Once you hit the Sand Flat’s Recreation Area just a couple miles out of town, you come across Hell’s Revenge and the first obstacle is a hill climb with long drop offs on either side of you. If that doesn’t scare you off than you should be ok for the rest of the trail. One of the best pieces of advice the guide said was “trust the machine” and that we did. It’s amazing what these machines are capable of.

The tour was great! It was just us, the guide and one other Razor. We were able to stop a few places, found some dinosaur tracks and had some breathe taking views.

After that, we were hooked. We were excited for our next adventure, to rent a Razor from the Moab Tour Company for the day and go out on our own.

But going out on your own is not as fun unless you bring along some friends. In the park that we were staying at, Portal RV Resort, we met some others, Carol & Barry, Kristi & Jim and Kurt & Cricket and we hit it off so well we all decided to go out on the trails together. Our new found friends Carol and Barry own their own Razor and had been to Moab several times before. So they knew of all the best places to go that may not be on the tourist map for off-roading.

One of the places they took us, which happens to be on BLM land and is plentiful out there, was Sevenmile Rim Trail. This is a 20-mile loop trail that has some difficult spots to it. We found it challenging but fun. And being with friends made it even more fun.

Our lunch stop was Tusher Tunnel where at the other end had some spectacular views. It is super dark and narrow though. So when walking through, you must keep your hands up and out so you don’t bump your head.

When we left Sevenmile Rim Trail we ended up traveling through some dried up river washes and across some more BLM land before we made it back to the park just before dinnertime. It was a great day and you could not wipe the smile off of our faces nor the dirt. If you wind up going off-roading be prepared to get dirty. Here’s a picture of David at our lunch stop. Note the seatbelt mark from the dirt.

After dinner we still had a couple hours of light left, so we set off on our own to hit another trail. We decided on one closer to town. Back to the Sand Flats Recreation Area we headed and attempted Fins and Things Trail. This was a challenging trail but we felt confident that we could do it, or we wouldn’t have tried it.

As the trail went on, the sun got lower and the shadows got longer. Our Razor did have headlights but we did not want to be out there in the dark trying to attempt this. So about half way through there is a turn off back to the main road. We opted to take that and go back in the morning.

Finishing up Fins and Things Trail in the morning was a good move. We still had the Razor rental until noon so we had plenty of time to finish without feeling rushed. It was a cold morning, just mid 40’s but it was beautiful. We finished the trail without issue and much to our dismay, returned the Razor.

So enough about off-roading. Another fun thing we did was to hire a guide for a private horseback riding tour around the red cliffs. MHCowboy, aka Matt, took us around the red cliffs and much to my dismay, up the cliffs. Now I am not, shall I say, a strong horseback rider but Matt really took care of me. David is very comfortable on a horse as he grew up riding thanks to his big/little sister Linda (inside joke). Yes, in upstate NY we have horses too. I took what I learned about off-roading and applied it to the “original” off-roading machine, the horse. I kept saying over and over again in my head was, “trust the horse”. I figure he’s not going to want to fall off the side of a cliff, so just relax.

It was a dreary start to the day but it cleared up nicely for a great ride. We were out about 3 hours and yes; my butt was sore for days afterwards. It was totally worth the soreness afterwards.

Matt was a great guide showing us some petroglyphs along the rock faces and talking about the area.

When we got back we kept laughing about how my horse realized how inexperienced I was and took advantage of my nice nature to stop and eat every chance he got.

Oh well, it was still a good time and we’re glad we did it.

We had so much fun in Moab that this is one place that we can see ourselves coming back to time and time again without getting bored. And sorry about the long blog post, we just can’t say enough about how much fun we had in Moab.

David took the quadcopter and several GoPro’s on our adventures and shot some great footage that he mixed together. So if Moab is not on your radar for places to visit, hopefully this will change your mind. (It’s on the longer side being just over 4 minutes, but it pounding music keeps it moving.)