If the Colorado Plateau spent much of this year baking under unusually hot temperatures with little precipitation, this fall brought the opposite.
Hurricane Rachel brought a third of our typical annual rainfall in just a few days. The storms even forced the cancellation of a well-known local ultrarunning event, with SAR crews evacuating stranded runners.
The storms left many roads muddy. Shortly afterward, another round of storms moved in, making local conditions even muddier and leaving many backcountry roads questionable at best.
And snow on the La Sals.
We also had houseguests for Thursday and Friday, so we changed our plans.
We decided on a quick local trip just off the pavement. With all the rain, plus snow up high, we had something special to enjoy: abundant, water-filled potholes along the canyon rims!
Plenty of water to poke around in normally dry areas, easy camping above the canyons, and those wonderful October sunsets and sunrises in canyon country.
A little map reading lets us find places away from the crowds, even when our little desert town gets particularly busy.
We wandered around the mesa, enjoyed the views, relaxed as night rolled in, and again found joy in the places close to home.
Views from our camp. Photo from Joan.
Rain greeted us in the morning, but we didn’t mind. I enjoyed some coffee, we read for a while, and then packed up during a break in the rain. With pavement nearby, we didn’t have to worry about getting stuck on the way home.
As of this writing, another flood watch remains in effect ahead of the weekend.
From NOAA.
But the weekend itself looks good. And we have another local trip on deck.
I think we’ll find something to do.
I’m planning on heading down there for a very similar (2-night) trip this weekend! I also plan on starting from one of the popular, paved trailheads and accessing pothole water from the rim (which I imagine should be available given the massive rain coming on Thursday)… great minds think alike! (or else I’ve been influenced too much by your blog…). I was hoping to also hike down into the canyons, hopefully all the way to the river (the somewhat well-known G-DL loop), but now based on this post of yours I’m worried that it will be too much of a… Read more »
Thx!
I am more worried about road conditions than canyons for sure. Having said that, it’s changing so rapidly due to all the rain. My gut feeling is that the upper canyons will be fine but as you get lower it will get muddier esp closer to the river
Be safe, have fun, and alter plans if needed. The Utah sun does bake the ground but the amount of rain changed the equation.
Thanks! It’s looking a little rainier this weekend now, so I’ll likely save this for another time (unfortunately, it’s a 6-hour drive from Denver for me… if I lived in Moab, I’d get out there for sure!)
Good call. We are changing up our own plans, too!