26-March-2024 Dead Horse State Park

⚠️ Warning! ⚠️ i'm going to be like an old person and talk a lot about the weather a lot today so if you don't want to hear nonstop weather ramblings please continue on to checking in your email or Instagram feeds and come back to my next blog. You've been warned!

This morning I was up before the sunrise (unusual for me!) and headed almost 3 hours east to Dead Horse State Park which is just outside of Mohab Utah. The I conic picture of this park is the U-shaped bend in the river that is just beyond an observation deck:

But let's start at the beginning......

I left my hotel early and had to pull over to take a quick picture of the sun rising above the geologic features as I drove to breakfast. How pretty! It looked like it was the start of a beautiful day but about 30 minutes later as I finished breakfast and went next-door to the gas station to fill up I found myself in my ski jacket in a snow squall freezing (temperature was about 30°) as I filled my tank. Thankfully as I had a couple miles down the road the squall did not follow me and I had nice driving conditions on the way to Moab.

That's when things got wacky! It's probably because there is such big sky territory here that you can see storms way off on the horizon - so different from New England! As I approached Moab I could see some snow squalls off in the distance – they would march across and obscure my view of distant objects as they blanketed the area in gray.

When I arrived at Dead horse State Park I saw just one of those types of storms in the clouds behind the welcome sign. I had considered possibly biking but the temperature was 40°, steady winds at 10 –20MPH and it felt downright freezing – not a good day to be on a bike. So I put on my fleece, ski jacket, knit hat and knit gloves and started on a short trail south of the visitor center. No sooner had I gotten on the trail than it started snowing round snow pellets like Dippin Dots. I saw some ephemeral pools and views into the valley below on the half mile hike out to a vista and on my way back to the visitor center the storm passed the sun came out and it was downright balmy! Thankfully I was going past my car and could do a quick wardrobe change – exchanged the ski jacket for a shell, the knit hat for a baseball cap, put on some sunglasses and ditched the gloves – it was in the 50s and gorgeous!

I then opted to take a 6 mile hiking trail around the entire park to a number of viewpoints. To my surprise, about 40 minutes later another squall rolled in and once again it was windy, cold and snowing. Luckily I brought the fleece and gloves with me in my backpack and I layered up and got the hood on and bent my head into the wind and snow. The visibility was so poor I decided that I would cut my hike short and not go out to the main viewing platform (about a mile away) because I would not have been able to see anything. Thankfully I could not find the trail that leads back to the visitor center because 15 minutes later the sun came out again and it was gorgeous again! I decided that it was the perfect time to go to the viewing platform and turned around and headed out to the edge of a canyon peninsula. I'm so glad the weather turned nice so I could see the beautiful canyon and horseshoe bend from this point.

I've divided my pictures of the day into 3 different galleries: the first is just a picture of all the wacky weather. The second is 3 selfies taken within 90 minutes that show me in my winter jacket in the snow, enjoying the sunshine in a baseball cap, and then back to freezing in the squall. The third section of pictures are pretty postcard pics from the day.

Thankfullu I have all the layers I could possibly want in my car and that the first trail I did wasn't out and back so that I could do a complete change mid-hike!

As you can see below, after the second snow squall the day turned out to be beautiful and I enjoyed 6+ more miles and incredible views. This state park was very much like the Grand Canyon. I'm working on my fear of heights and got perilously close to some drop offs - or at least it seemed super close for me! I just love all the different colors and stripes and formations.

Although this was "just a state park" it sure had a lot to offer! I did find out that their bike trails are only for mountain biking and not for road biking – I'm too afraid of falling off and hurting myself in a narrow rocky rut so I let that opportunity slide.

After hiking 10+ miles yesterday and 7+ miles today my legs are really tired and the blister on my toe is really big! Time to wrap that toe in a tight Band-Aid tomorrow .... many more miles to go!