Moab day 1

I’m just getting out from under a buttload of work to process photos from Moab. And, as always, it was spectacular, and going through photos brings it back to life.

Day 1 was Slickrock, and Dragon and I went out early and did the whole loop. Conditions were pretty good for most of it; rain was threatened but didn’t hit while we were out there. The clouds kept off the worst of the heat, and helped with the photography, too. We did a lot of climbing and some re-dos, and had a mechanical or two (Dragon’s vintage-2003 Gazzaloddi had a sidewall tear which I patched up with a dollar bill and athletic tape), so we were out there a while. Josh and his crew came in from the train in the afternoon, and only got to the junction, so we didn’t run into them on the trail.

The last hour we were out there the wind kicked up to the point of ridiculousness. It became almost unrideable on the ridges, and even mounting was significantly harder as the wind would blow you off-balance while you were getting up. Welcome to the high desert! Definitely one of the more dramatic loops we’ve done out there.