June in Moab
Continuing from my last blog post (which got quite long). I spent the end of June in Moab, and my experience from the year before was quite different! I made lots of friends, I got to do lots of activities and there was a strange tension in the air for a girl I met.
While in Moab, the UK election for Brexit was underway. I had tried to arrange a parachuting course to get my parachuting license. Between one day and the next of the Brexit election my money in the UK had depreciated by about 30% against the dollar. What had sounded like a good deal before now was turning out to be very expensive. I declined the parachuting course.
All the while I was in touch with Gabby and hearing about how she was getting along in the Grand Canyon. 🙂
Rafting
A couple of days later I was up at dawn with sun-screen, mosquito spray and swimming shorts. Vlad was a man of his word and I was enjoying the rapids the Colorado had to offer, literally not a scrap on the Zambezi but was fun day out!
Climbing
Between other activities I went climbing several times with Kai and a couple of his friends Tauri and Kathi. We went to Corona Arch, deep water soloing, bouldering and traditional climbing. Here’s a pick of the shots we took.
Arches National Park
From experience, I knew that midday in Arches National Park was grim for photography; awful for crowds and unpleasant with the heat. Tauri and Kathi wanted to see the park and I had a National Parks pass so we went for a dawn drive into the park, sadly that particular day was overcast and the sunrise was pretty poor. 🙁
It works out that Tauri is a budding slack-liner and gymnast, he offered to do some handstands on some rocks for some photos. 🙂
Canyonlands
Aside from the many people I was meeting in the hostel one particular day Kai and I got to meet two girls named Glory and Cloey, they were doing a road trip together across the states and were in Moab for a few days, they wanted us to guide them round Canyonlands, I hadn’t personally been but obliged in the invitation to go. It works out that June in Moab is monsoon season. We left Moab into Canyonlands to see storms and heavy rain. Half way on a hike to Grand View Point Overlook we got caught in a storm. We hurried down a section in the cliff and took refuge under a rock.
Later that evening, we went to Corona Arch and then went for a swim in the Colorado river. Fun times!
Gabby
In the end, I have to say the drop of the British pound, the departure of Kai and the idea that I could meet Gabby in Colorado before my Horizons Unlimited presentation seemed very exciting. She and I had been eagerly in touch and I frankly couldn’t wait to see her again. Just to make things amusing, we agreed to meet in Silverton…
