Day 6 – May 25 Needles and Needles

I really wasn’t sure how today was going to go. I was a little trigger shy after yesterday’s hike, and I wasn’t too eager to feel that kind of anxiety again. So I delayed my hike more than usual.

I headed south to the Needles District again, with teeth-gritting determination to hike the area once more. The hike I had decided to attempt was highly recommended by my campground host, Joe, who is a 70-something hiker himself. My book of hikes gave a number of options for this route, and distances and levels of difficulty ranged from 5 miles to 15 miles and easy to challenging. I knew I was shooting for both the shorter distance and the less challenging routes, but I hadn’t decided for sure what I was going to choose when I was out on the trail.

Hiking buddies Julie and Shinkai

I got about halfway to the trail head, maybe 30 miles down the road, and I decided to turn around and head to Moab to check for some mail I’m expecting. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this hike and I needed some more time to decide.

Early-morning Moab was lovely, bustling with activity for the Memorial Day weekend with people gassing up off-road vehicles and filling ice coolers. It’s amazing here how many vehicles are 4-wheel drive and how many of those 4-wheel drive vehicles have gas cans strapped to their roofs or bumpers. Many of the locations for off-roading here require more gas to get to than fits in a gas tank.

The weather was perfect in the low 70s with a gentle breeze. I felt clean and perfectly comfortable, and I couldn’t help thinking how a multi-hour hike was going to change all that. I thought about choosing a different hike – one on the north side of Moab instead of back to the south, and I thought about revising my plans for the next few days, depending on whether my letter was here on not. The letter was not here, so I knew I had to stay close to Moab to pick it up Tuesday morning. Once I knew that, I decided to head back where my day began, and I traveled back south to The Needles District once more.

This trail left from a different trail head than the one from yesterday – one accessed only by a single-lane gravel road. But the remote location didn’t deter everyone; the parking lot for the trail head was full because in addition to the foot trail, there is a 4-wheel drive trail leaving from the same area.

Because I had delayed my start, it was noon before I was off and hiking. I immediately met two girls who were leaving at the same time, Julie and Shinkai. These were lovely young women, and we hiked much of the time together. Surprisingly, they both had gone to school at the University of Iowa. Shinkai was still in Iowa City working, but Julie had escaped Iowa and was living in Colorado. It was great hiking with them – I enjoy the solo hiking, but it’s nice to have company some of the time.

We hiked about two miles of the trail together until they decided to add in Druid Arch. They invited me to join them, but I decided to simply hike the shorter option, to a place called Chesler Park. The hike took me up many rock formations, but these had more gradual slopes for the most part, and a lot of the uphill hiking was climbing boulders and rocks. This, although strenuous, is much less nerve-wracking hiking – at least for me.

I saw a lot of other hikers along this trail – it’s one of the more popular apparently. And with it being a holiday weekend, the park was busy. But of course, busy is a relative term – I probably saw 25 – 30 hikers in the almost 6 miles I hiked.  And almost everyone is friendly and has an interesting story if you’re able to stop long enough to exchange pleasantries. The summit of the hike was on top of another saddle, and after the climb, it offered amazing views of Chesler Park, a flat meadow of sorts in the middle of the rock formations from which the district gets its name.

These Needles are truly breath-taking. They shoot up out of the ground in groups and individually. This is one of the most amazing terrains I’ve ever seen. Everywhere you look, there’s something to astonish these mid-western eyes. The colors, while somewhat monotone, are gorgeous in their oranges and golds and browns. And the variety of shapes is endless. One of the most memorable thing about this landscape is the layer
of spectacle. In some views, the La Sal Mountains stand at the horizon, and between these still snow-capped mountains there are various formations and vegetation – almost creating a visual overload. I could see this landscape inspiring someone to want to become a photographer – capturing the effect would be quite a feat.

Well, and then there's this.

When I returned to my car at 4:00, hot and sweaty and tired, I was so glad I’d decided to do the hike. I can’t imagine missing this – it has to be the highlight of Canyonlands, if not for everyone, it certainly has been for me. I agree with what I read in one of the pieces of literature about the place:  that until we can travel to Mars to see an other-worldly landscape, at least we have The Needles.