Utah Trip
We are flying back to Portland from our trip to Utah (literally, we are on the plane as I type this). It’s been a fabulous vacation. We flew out of Portland Tuesday morning and landed in Salt Lake City, Utah. We rented a Toyota RAV4 and drove to central Utah. Our first stop was Maroni, where we took a quick tour of Maple Canyon – the place Mike used to climb when he lived in Utah. We went to Box Canyon and tried some routes that Mike remembered. Mike started on a 5.11a. That didn’t work (probably because we were both tired already), so he climbed a neighboring 5.10a. I tried the 5.10a, but wasn’t feeling in the zone and didn’t get very far. We were both a bit tired, so we headed to Mt. Pleasant where we planned to stay at a hotel. We got a hotel room and were off to find a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant in Mt. Pleasant was closed so we headed to Ephram. Only McD’s there, and I wasn’t all that excited for McD’s, so we went to the next small town of Manit. There, we found a Texas barbeque restaurant. Just by the look of the restaurant, the fact we didn’t see a bar, and the nature of the towns in the area, we guessed the restaurant wouldn’t offer beer. We were right. We had a mediocre dinner and then went to the hotel. Both Mike and I had brought our laptops with us, so we did a little work and went to bed early.
On Wednesday, we woke early and took off for Maple Canyon. We started climbing at Schoolhouse Wall. It was great – only Mike and I were there and the climbing was really good. The rock is composite, so it has large rocks throughout the wall. Mike set up a toprope for me on either a 5.7 or 5.8. After we finished that route, I decided to lead another route, also in the 5.7-5.8 range. I did it and felt pretty good about leading the route and ready to lead another. A group of people had come to the same area, so we packed up and moved on. After hiking for a bit, we decided to return to Box Canyon. There, Mike did a 5.11a that he used to climb a lot when he was younger. He had a good time with it. Near the tope of the route, a pigeon was sitting in her nest. She was really, really unhappy that Mike was climbing the wall next to her. She started almost growling at him, then making all sorts of odd sounds. Mike completed the route and we moved on, but the bird was still angry. She was still squacking.
After Mike’s climb, he took some photographs of some other climbers. They turned out really good. We hiked a bit farther in the canyon, then decided we had had enough sun and were ready to move on. Throughout our entire vacation, we were mindful of not over-exerting ourselves and keeping hydrated because I was running a marathon that Saturday.
We drove to Moab and arrived there just before dinnertime. We both really liked the town of Moab. It resembled Bend, but was a little more rugged and focused heavily on bicycling and off-roading. Of course, the town was close to Arches National Park, so the downtown part was primarily tourist-oriented. The first hotel we tried, Best Western, did not have a room for us. We were later glad it was full because we found a room at an interesting hotel down the street. I can’t remember the name, but it had a funky no-door-shower and a great environment. Also, it was walking distance to the Moab Brewery, which was Mike’s focus since we saw the sign when we entered town.
Mike’s school
