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8/25/17 - Mt. Peale - La Sal Moutains, Moab, Utah
I'm long overdue for providing some TR's this year, and so my apologies. While this year didn't end well with too much work and too much schooling, I was able to get out bit more in the spring and summer.
I started this one in late August on a perfect sunny day. This hike is about an hour and half drive south from Moab to the "La Sal Pass" viewpoint. This was my first time to this part of the La Sals...and oh my. I'm in love! The drive to La Sal Pass was worth it alone!
After having the highpoint of the La Sal Mountain range on my radar for about 5 years, and after a very bad work week, I needed to go to one of my favorite Utah outdoors to refresh my broken spirit. I left my town of Kaysville about 6am; got to the trailhead around 11:45am, hiked to the summit and back in about 4 hours (which is less than 5 miles), had dinner at Pasta Jay's in Moab and stopped at Matrimony spring per tradition, and made it back to my bed all before 10:30pm. It was a long day; although not technically tiring but just being alert for that long just made crawling into my bed extra nice.
On this day, the high in downtown Moab was 95 degrees, followed by the trailhead (at 10,000 feet) at 70 degrees, and the summit (at 12,700+ feet) at 62 degrees. It was so unique travelling through so much diversity in temperature, terrain, and beauty in so short of time!
I travelled through the hot desert of Moab, drove through the cool alpine forest of the La Sals (which included many tall aspen trees), hiking through an alpine meadow, then nothing but rocks for miles, and then relaxing by the nearby "lake" for 30 minutes taking in all of the views. Beautiful!
I won't describe the trail too much as I'll let the pictures do most of the talking for me; but lets just say that once on the rocks, some sections were a little unnerving. Especially when you stepped on a rock, and in a 5-foot radius around that rock, shook! A rock slide is very likely here. Be very careful when treading up near the summit!
Enjoy!
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And a few pics from the drive up and the nearby "lake":
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EDIT: fixed the rotation. As much as I love Google Chrome, it just doesn't play nice uploading pictures apparently. Internet Explorer fixed that issue for me.
