Moab

Moab has exactly one traffic light and approximately four hundred outdoor gear shops. I exaggerate, but only slightly. The town sits in a canyon carved by the Colorado River at an elevation just under 4,000 feet — low enough that it bakes in summer while the plateau parks above it stay moderate — and it has the particular energy of a place that exists purely to funnel people in and out of wilderness. Almost everyone you pass in the street is either going somewhere or just came back from somewhere, and their clothing and expressions confirm which.

I came to Moab between Arches and Canyonlands with the vague idea that I needed a base rather than any particular enthusiasm for the town itself. I was wrong to be snobbish about it. Moab repays attention.

The Colorado River Road

Highway 128 runs northeast from Moab along the Colorado River through a canyon that most people drive past at 70mph on the way to somewhere else. I pulled over four times in fifteen miles. The river is a deep green in autumn, moving fast and quiet, and the canyon walls above it are a warm red that deepens as the day goes on. There are campsites right on the riverbank that require nothing but a reservation and a tolerance for the sound of moving water all night.

At the end of the canyon road, Castle Valley appears — a cluster of freestanding sandstone towers in a wide valley that looks like the backdrop for a western I should have seen but haven’t. Lia pulled out her camera and didn’t put it away for an hour.

Mountain Biking Slickrock

Moab’s Slickrock Bike Trail is perhaps the most famous mountain bike trail in the country, a loop over petrified sand dunes with exposure that varies from mildly alarming to genuinely frightening depending on your experience level. I rented a bike in town and did the practice loop first — a shorter circuit that previews the main trail’s character without committing to the full exposure.

The rock has a coarseness that grips tires in ways that seem to defy physics, allowing you to ride up slopes that look vertical from the bottom. The downside is that the same coarseness ensures that any fall is memorably unpleasant. I fell once, slowly, on a descent I’d misjudged, and stood up with gravel-textured palms and renewed respect for the practice loop.

Dead Horse Point

Technically in a state park rather than a national park, Dead Horse Point sits on a mesa above the Colorado River that narrows to a twenty-foot neck connecting it to the surrounding plateau. Cattle were once herded here and penned with a brush fence; some were allegedly left after roundup and died of thirst within sight of the river below. Whether the story is historically precise is debatable; the viewpoint is not.

The Colorado River makes a horseshoe bend directly below the point, and the canyon system spreading to the south is the same system you’re looking into from Canyonlands’ Island in the Sky, but from a different angle. Sunset here is more accessible than sunrise and arguably more rewarding — the river turns a deep copper as the light drops.

Eating in the Desert

Moab’s restaurant scene has improved significantly from its trail-food origins. I ate well at a place on the main street that took its green chile seriously and served New Mexican-inflected food that tasted like someone had actually been to New Mexico. The beer is the 3.2-limit Utah variety that the locals will apologize for unprompted — for anything stronger, the state liquor stores close at 10pm.

When to go: Mid-March through May and mid-September through November. Moab in summer is hot enough to be dangerous for any serious trail work, though the river corridor stays cooler. Spring brings more people but also cottonwood buds and wildflowers in the canyon. October is the peak of the peak — if you want empty, try March or early November.