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More About Moab

It's hard to predict what a mesa is like when you see it from only one angle, say, from your campsite, or when you blast by it in a car. So the second day at our Moab campsite, we headed off to circum-ambulate the neighborhood mesa. It did not disappoint.


I hope I never outgrow the discomfort that comes from slot canyons, mine shafts, caves, and canyons, since it was this very discomfort that gets most of the credit for the effect that this canyon had on me, besides the usual credit that goes to the very act of walking.


There are far more famous photo icons of Moab (Monument Valley, etc.) than what was here, but it's always more fun to personally discover an un-famous area.


It surprised me how smooth the sandstone cliff faces were. They were 200-300 feet tall and quite vertical; but looked at from above, the cliff formed a circular reflector that made it easy to hear each car pass on a highway about a mile away.

When Coffee Girl and I retreated from the mouth of the canyon, the usual canyon-creepy feeling started to decline and I became relaxed. Although we've all heard echoes from cliffs I had to try out the acoustics here. The echo was the clearest and loudest that I've ever heard, enough so that it made me giggle.

Recall that famous scene, towards the beginning of Lawrence of Arabia, when Lawrence sings at the cliffs (Wadi Rum in Jordan). It was only the fact that I was male that kept me from ululating like the Arab women in the movie do.

Comments

TROUBLEnTX said…
I get the same feelings, like you. That closed in, trapped one.
I've just found your blog, and am so enjoying it.
Good to see you sticking it out in Moab. Clear blue skies portend cold nights tho. We're stuck in clouds and the 50's till monday, then it starts warming and the sun returns. Which route out of there?
Thanks for the kind words, TROUBLEnTX.

Box Canyon Blogger, I had to abandon ship in Moab. Hit snow going over the hump in Monticello UT. Now I'm in a Starbucks in Alburquerque, pretending to be an urban sophisticate with a new netbook on my lap.

I took US550 from Farmington to Albuquerque; 4 lanes the whole way, so I drove 55 mph.