MOAB

I was looking for any excuse to get away for the weekend and enjoy the outdoors, so when my old high school friend, Michelle, called me up and announced that she would be in Moab that coming weekend it didn't take long before I had my bags packed. I drove down Friday afternoon and met up with Michelle and her friend Ariel.

Our first objective was to find a free place to camp. Our search for this "free" camping site led us out of town on a dusty back road. We stopped to get some directions from a hippie doing yoga on top of an old dilapidated school bus that sat stranded in a large field. Following his directions we continued along the windy road another 6 miles or so. The road led us down a canyon-edge road until we got to the bottom and across a small stream which my little Honda tackled with the heart of a monster truck. The sights were beautiful and after a little off-roading we found a nice campsite by the river to pitch our tent. I was so excited to be camping again! In the distance, as if providing a lullaby, we could hear the "who-ing" of an owl.

The next morning we had a great breakfast at the EckleticCafe, a uniquely-earthly, organic establishment. We then raided the climbing stores trying to find someone who could give us information on how to find the trail to Morning Glory Arch. We struck gold inside Pagan Mountaineering with a lady with a thick east coast accent. Our conversation went something like this...

"We're looking to repel off morning glory arch. Do you know how to get there?" I said.

"Why sure, do you have a map"? At this point i began to unfold my tourist cartoon map of Moab printed on the back of some brochure I picked up at the cafe.

"Yeah, I've got a map". I replied.

Stepping back to study us over again she said, "Now your really starting to scare me".

The display of our tourist map didn't impress her so it took a little convincing to make it seem like we were experienced enough but we acted the part well. She was actually a very nice lady and we became good friends. However the directions we're vague, all she could say was to "go to the radio tower on the slick rock trail and look left for a wash". Well, we went up to slick rock, found the radio tower and started hiking to the left...

Fortunately we managed to hike down the right wash and found our first repel which was about 100 feet long.

We hiked about 5 minutes further and the trail led right to the top of Morning Glory Arch the 6th longest natural land bridge in America and about 110ft tall.

OurAnchor was this little tree.

The hike back to the road was only about a mile or so and the trip to town was a breeze.