On our last full day in Moab we decide to get up early and enjoy an early morning hike in Negro Bill Canyon on the outskirts of Moab. This was one of the hikes recommended by the Rotarian from U of T. So we dragged our tired buts out of bed at 5:30 and were at the trailhead (below) with our knapsacks and water bottles by 6:30.
This was an unusual canyon in that it had a ‘perennial stream’, meaning it flows all the time, not just during floods, so there was much more greenery than we had seen before on our desert hikes. The trail was fairly easy to follow and went alongside the creek for about two miles, meandering back and forth across the creek by means of stepping stones (below). The best part was that it was mostly in shade and the temperature was very comfortable.
After two miles we turned into a side canyon to check out Morning Glory Bridge (below), which is the sixth largest natural bridge in the USA. The second photo below shows John at the base of the bridge which is the rock pillar on the right of the photo. We had a picnic lunch of cheese, crackers and fruit while sitting under the bridge, listening to all the birds singing. On the trail back we had to be careful of some poison ivy on steroids - the plants were as high as my shoulder! Yikes!
The sun was a little higher now so some parts of the trail were in sunshine and it was much warmer in those parts. On our way out we passed a few other hikers near the parking lot at 9:30 and I was thinking ‘suckers!’ because it was getting really hot out and they had three hours of hiking still to go.
We drove back to the campground, had nice cool showers and went back to bed for a three hour nap with the air conditioning set on high. When we got up in the early afternoon the outside temperature was 98 degrees and the UV factor was 10 (that’s on a scale of 1 to 10 by the way). We stayed in the RV all afternoon escaping the heat and walked across the road for dinner and a couple of cool ones at the Moab Brewery. Then we walked to the grocery store and stocked up for the next few days. The next morning we packed up and moved our travelling road show a whopping 70 miles mortheast to Grand Junction, Colorado.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:36 pm Everything is BIG that yu visit!