Due to the weather forecast and what the weather would do to a twisty and steep road, we decided to spend the weekend locally and look at the nooks and crannies around our Moab home.
We scrambled up and down the canyon walls and saw what we could see.

Joan enjoyed the low-angle approach.
Part of our jaunt found a 1903 ladder used to service a cable system to bring water up to an early oil exploration site in the Moab area.
Somehow, I don’t think the ladder meets modern OSHA standards.
We did find an easy scramble around the ladder that gave a further view up the canyon.
A nearby alcove had some noticeable “cowboy glyphs” or, perhaps more accurately, “oil exploration glyphs.”
On the way back, we spotted the expected signs of people who came through hundreds of years ago.
We went home, and the rain came. Our original location would have been a muddy slog and potentially dangerous drive back.
The following day, we took another obscure hike, one inspired by the ever-useful Utah’s Canyon Country Place Names by Steve Allen. We followed an obscure and abandoned stage road connecting the town of Thompson Springs to Moab.
Old cairns, a faint road cut, and the lay of the land let us find this old route that went through some memorable terrain.
We enjoyed following this route because it puts the area in a new light – an area that seems isolated today was just off a reasonably well-used route.
The landscape gets connected differently.
It was another memorable hike so close to home. And further proof is that we’ll always find places new to us to hike.

The requisite fence crossing from one land management area to another.
Hard to believe that ladder is still intact after a century. You live in a time capsule.
The longer I live here the more I like it!