Southwest trip day 14: Moab, UT

My original idea for the day had been to visit Arches and Canyonlands National Park right outside of Moab. But I realized that my family wasn’t as enthused as I was about visiting yet another couple of parks dedicated to rocks so I suggested we go rafting on the Colorado River instead. It took zero arm-twisting to convince them. Fortunately, we found an outfitter that still had four openings on such short notice.

 

After a 30 minute bus drive from Moab we put in at Fisher Towers. We opted to sit on one of the large rafts instead of using two-person kayaks.

 

I’d never been river rafting before so I didn’t know what to expect. But I certainly didn’t expect that I would have so much fun! In fact, I wished there had been more Class II rapids on that stretch of the Colorado River. Going through the rapids was a nice little thrill ride.

 

As we were floating down the river, we had plenty of time to marvel at the towering sandstone cliffs on either side of us.

 

This stretch of the Colorado River—and of Utah highway 128 which parallels the river—is worthy of being in a national park.

 

After about an hour of being on the river we were fed lunch and had plenty of opportunity to swim.

 

I was actually pretty sad when we reached our take-out point. I could easily have gone another few hours.

 

What a great way to enjoy the incredible red rock scenery of Moab!

 

Our outfitter was Canyon Voyages right on Main Street in Moab (virtually all businesses in Moab are on Main Street) and I would highly recommend them.

After our rafting trip was over there wasn’t much time left to visit the national parks. We opted to forego Canyonlands and spent sunset at Arches National Park. I’ll post photos in a separate post tomorrow.