Moab, Utah

June 8, 2026

We left our awesome campsite in Arches and drove about an hour (most of which was spent just getting out of the park) to a campsite near the base of the La Sal mountains. The heat continued its upward trend, and we were treated to mid 90 degrees and sunny skies upon arrival (and every day during our 4-night stay). We think we found the uppermost limit of what we will tolerate without air conditioning.

Leaving Arches National Park

The road to our new (temporary) home

The campground was kind of parched and barren, but it did have a nice view of the La Sal mountains.

On our first afternoon, we scouted out Ken's Lake, which was close to our campsite. We did a little wading, but the lake didn't feel very inviting for swimming. It was kind of small and didn't feel like it got a lot of fresh water coming in.

The creek feeding into the lake was refreshing.

The view of our camp loop from the lake trail

The short walk to the lake entirely wore us out on account of the heat, so we spent the rest of the day in the shade on the deck chugging iced tea. Julie put on her swimsuit and took cool showers periodically. It was the next best thing to swimming--and, she knew where the water had been!

The next day, we decided to go up into the mountains of our backyard. It was bound to be cooler up there. Not only was it pleasantly cooler, but it was also a gorgeous drive with a ton of visual variety!

Heading to the cool mountains

It was amazing how quickly the surrounding color changed from reds to greens!

We took a little side walk around Warner Lake and vicinity.

During our drive, we kept encountering the trail called "The Whole Enchilada".

You can see the road we were on in the distance.

We turned off onto a dirt road for an entirely different experience.

An amazing lookout!

The road was quite sandy in spots, but we never got stuck!

Suddenly, the road narrowed to one lane as it descended into a canyon.

Julie was a little nervous about the dropoff on this sketchy road. It's really only Julie that was nervous. Rick was pretty chill the entire time.

You just hope that there is no one coming from the opposite direction around the corner.

This is a really popular area for mountain biking.

...or help locate your body!

This really was an amazing drive!

The next day, we stayed close to camp and walked the Faux Falls trail right off our campground. Faux Falls is pretty much what it says it is--the falls are indeed fake. Every year, water is directed down the creek to fill Ken's Lake. The fact that this creates a gorgeous set of falls against the red rock is a bonus!

We didn't care if the waterfall was "fake"--it sure was pretty!

One can never take too many pictures of a waterfall 😉

We hiked all the way up to the source.

The sunsets were pretty nice during our stay...

Some rare (but fleeting) clouds

On our last day, we made the trek to Canyonlands National Park. We had been to the Needles district a few years ago, but where we went this time (Island in the Sky District) was very different. Instead of viewing things inside the canyons, we viewed the scenery from the canyon rims.

It felt strange to be on top of the mesa and not see any "scenery" after entering the national park, but that changed soon enough as we drove along.

Our first stop was Mesa Arch.

Upheaval Dome viewpoint

Green River Overlook

The Shafer Trail that cars can take down to the bottom of the canyon. We opted against it because it takes a long time to drive down (and then you have to turn around and drive back up).

Another viewpoint--we lost track of what was what after a while

It's canyons all the way down!

And that's a wrap for the Moab area!

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