2017 Moab Trip - Day 1 and 2

Ah yes, the annual gathering of the Urals and their riders here in what I see as the off-road riding capital of Utah.

I left early Saturday morning and after cruising some some of this scenery in the high country:

The high country in Colorado....the other "high country"

would be in Denver.

Umarang, the URRV with Scarlett in tow and I would end up in Moab at the Archview RV Campground at 3:00PM, a bit over 6 hours later.

Met up with Tim L and we set off to go scout possible locations for the night's/early morning shooting of the Milky Way.  Little did I realize that not much sleep would be achieved that day.

We rode into Arches NP and he found the planned location of the Double Arch near Balanced Rock to be quite suitable for the early morning's shooting.

The arch we'd shoot the Milky Way through...

The arch we'd sit next to....

photo courtesy Tim L.

We then rode over to the Dead Horse Point State Park and found ourselves some nice spots to shot the views as the sun set.  The sunset itself was nothing to write home about but quite a few folks showed up in the last 30 minutes or so to enjoy the sights anyways.

 That flat spot around which the river curves is

called Gooseneck Point.

 That is Potash Road making its way through

the canyon below.

 Tim L.

photo courtesy Tim L.

Tim L. enjoying the view as the sun sets.

Some gorgeous pics from Tim L:

We returned home in the dark after a rather disappointing sunset and just had dinner and chatted until it was time to gear up and head out for the Milky Way shoot.

At 0100 in the morning we rode out, and into the nearby Arches NP.  We reached the previously scouted location and proceeded to walk in seemingly long distance to our planned photo perches.  You see, we were trying to establish and conserve our night vision and so were limited to the use of Tim L.'s red led headlamp.

So we stumbled our way to the spots after a bit and shot away for the next 90 minutes or so.  My shots, didn't really come out at all.  Tim's camera is quite a bit more capable:

At 3:30AM we called it quits and headed back to the campground where we incoherently (so tired) said goodbye to each other and crashed.

Sunday:

Woke up less than 5 hours of sleep later, tired.  Go figure.  Sunday was a easygoing day, with lunch in downtown Moab as we waited for fellow Uralisti to show up and setup camp.

As evening approached, both Tim and I had seen that SunsetWX was predicting a nice sunset for the area of Utah that we were in.  So a quick plan was made and a destination picked, the top end of Mineral Springs Road.

As everyone who'd shown up were still resting or setting up camp, it was just Tim L. and I riding out and about 45 minutes later we found a nice spot at the top of the canyon wall trail that leads down to Mineral Springs.

Before we got to shooting pics though, along comes this articulated off road truck with the friendly German couple who stopped to get info/UDF and pics with us.

 Gunther and his wife.

 The rigs and Gunther's offroad home

 photo courtesy Tim L.

Tim L. then had the inspiration to instead pose the rigs along the edge of the canyon wall with the setting sun illuminating the rocky walls and road nicely:

 A view of the Mineral Springs Valley way below where we stood.

photo courtesy of Tim L.

 The lovely winding road leading down to the valley.

 photo courtesy Tim L.

 Just to give you an idea of the road and canyon walls.

 photo courtesy Tim L.

A very much boosted (in terms of colors) view of the

meager sunset we got on Sunday.

We got home as it really turned dark, chatted with fellow Uralisti for a bit and then hit the sack.  More to follow.