I didn't write much in the journal as this was a pretty packed day of activity and on top of that, we were leaving at 4:30am the next morning for a hot air balloon ride above Arches National Park, where after that was done, we were officially done with the 2021 vacation with the exception of the 1000 mile drive home that we were going to try and do that day. Remember, we have 4 drivers now!
Back to the journal: We will be leaving in just a couple of minutes (as I write this) for an ATV tour called, "Hell's Revenge". I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous. Hopefully, we'll all walk away from this excursion excited, like we did previously doing the ATV tour of White Pocket... time will tell.
And from the journal several hours later: Well, by golly! We are back and while there were some parts that were indeed terrifying, it was a truly amazing experience! Once again, we had the most amazing tour guide, Jesse, an Apache Indian. He was funny, a bit crazy, and overall, a blast to be around! When he briefed the group at the ATV rental place before we left, he told us that these ATV's were half car, half mountain goat, and that we would encounter 70 degree slopes going both up, and down. We thought he was exaggerating so when we hit 45/50 degree slopes, we wouldn't freak out. As it turns out, he was NOT LYING!!
We heard some great stories from a guy that had been exploring this area since he was 8 years old, killed a bear with a spear, scaled and repelled the canyon walls as well as crazy other things with his family living in the area. It was a beauty of a time and I would love to keep writing about it, but I have only 6 hours left before we check out of this house to be at our next, and final, adventure at 4:30am.
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| That's Moab Utah in the bottom left quadrant and the red marker just below the center of the picture is the trail head for the Hell's Revenge tour. I tried to put a white line on the pic of a rough outline of where we spent our time, but it won't save. We obviously entered at the red marker and stayed towards the edge of the "mountain" above Moab to go betwixt that green marker just left of center and big gulch. After that, many hills, valleys, and places no vehicle was ever supposed to go to wind up between the green markers at the top of the pic overlooking the Colorado river. A different path was taken on the way back that was no less exciting as the ride in. If you have a chance to do this, do it! |
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| This is after we made it up the initial "blade" from the trail head. We're the first vehicle behind Jesse. Much like the White Sands National Park, it looks like a different planet up here. |
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| Nothing too scary yet... my nerves are settling in. |
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| You stop periodically for Jesse to get out, tell stories, give some history, and whatever else. This was our first stop and what a view! |
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| That's Jesse facing us. |
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| It's like giant loaves of bread. |
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| Many places that you stop, you have to be careful exiting your vehicle because if you caught a toe or something on the door and tripped, you would plummet down one the "loaves of bread". I had about as much room on the drivers side to get out. |
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| The Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit in all of their Moab glory! |
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| You can kind of tell where the path is leading if you were so intent on not driving off of one of the edges by the darker trails. This is where we just came from and just over that hill was one of the ~70 degree inclines. |
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| Four more vehicles coming up the path behind us. The little yellow <> on the trail tells you that your are... uh... still on the trail. |
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Look at that hair!
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| Jesse told some great stories at this point. There's a nickname for this place, but I don't remember it now. It has to do with the light sand that blows in the wind and creates a slippery slope where people on foot, or on horses, slide off of the edge to their deaths. These are also some of the walls that Jesse scaled and repelled. |
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| Note the ATV going up the rock in the background. |
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| Jesse Walked down further than most of us and you could tell that he held a reverence for the area. Pretty cool to see. |
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| The cool thing about these tours is that the guides all know each other and they communicate as they meet on the trail. One of the things that one of the guides had communicated to Jesse was that there were two vehicles coming up thru a difficult passage. We headed towards that area to watch, and it was pretty cool! |
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| There were a bunch of cool stories told at this point too. Do I remember any of them? Nope. |
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| Don't step back... This is betwixt Icebox Canyon and Grandstaff Canyon trail on the fancy google maps. That's the Colorado river and hwy 128 sharply down the hill behind us. |
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| That's the closest I would get. However, if you go onto the google maps, there are points that people recorded where they are much further over the edge than what we see here. No thanks. |
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| This pit, because that's what it is, is called the "hot tub". This is a massive challenge for drivers to see if they can pass. The short answer is, most people cannot! There has been a lot of destruction, tows, and some death in this pit. |
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| On the left side of this pic, there's a deep crevasse that you can see the shadow of. People drive regular vehicles up to this point and try to do stuff that the ATV's do. These teens vehicle went up there and when they tried to get turned around, they fell into the crevasse and their truck was suspended upside down. The teens all got down alive and for the most part, unharmed. After a few hours, the boys realized that the truck had a great stereo in it so they went back up to retrieve it. Yikes... |
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Dinosaur fossils.
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| Same... |
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| The sunset looking West... the suns going down and the wind is picking up! |
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| The sun was setting and the wind is really picking up now as evidenced by my flowing mane! Along with the wind, there's more fine sand blowing so our eye's are being affected. |
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| That's Moab down there... |
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Our last photo with the wind becoming somewhat relentless, and so too, the sand.
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That is the last of our ATV tour. We drove back to the rental place in mostly dark conditions and sadly had to say goodbye to Jesse. We tipped him handsomely and I told him that I wish we had an extra day or two in the are to take him and his family out for dinner to hear more stories!
It was not too be. We had a short night ahead and still had to pack the van for the next morning.
