Hidden Valley Trail

Friday, June 21, 2013

Todays hike was to The Hidden Valley. The trailhead is only a couple of miles from home and we hit the dirt around 9:00am.

The trial was 7 miles round trip and very unforeseen. The first mile and ½ is complex. You have to navigate on and across rocks along with unstable sand, while climbing just over 680 feet. Throughout our ascension we sauntered through a series of  switchbacks. Lots of hairpins.

We stopped numerous times to catch up with our breathing. It was warm and there was no breeze. Once we reached the plateau the entire scenery transformed. Instead of rocky, sandy, steep hiking we were starring at a beautiful broad shelf between the top of the Moab Rim and Spanish Valley.

The vista in front of us was unexpected and surprising. The view below us was most all of Spanish Valley. Just beautiful! This Valley is truly hidden from everything. We had a tricky time trying to find the route yet to be in front of us, all morning long. It appeared as if we were mountaineering on a big horn sheep trail. It was very narrow and very very rock-strewn.

We trekked through the 2-mile valley and reinvigorated beneath an outcropping for lunch. We did not take a lot of pictures today because it is so incredibly arduous to encapsulate the authenticity of the red rocks with the sun directly above.  Equally, I’m sure to you they are all beginning to look identical. They are not alike at all  - but with no deepness in the pictures you simply cannot tell.

The images of the trail in this blog are gazing downhill. They appear to be just masses of rocks, but it is in actuality going down and turning left and right constantly.

If we choose we could have continued on from our lunch spot but that would have put us out on the trail until at least 5 pm. The trail continues onto the Moab Rim Trail, which is a jeep trail. It ends at the Colorado River, and was another 7 miles to complete. We chose not follow that trail and proceeded back home.

We stopped at Walker Drug on the way back and purchased some moleskin for tomorrows hike. Moleskin is a hikers godsend. It is for blisters on your feet,  and works wonderfully.

Tonight we are going to try and take Sire out for a bit and see how he does. Happy Summer, and thanks for reading.