Day 8: Poison Spider Trail, Dino Tracks, Petroglyphs, Chill Day / Laundry Day
We slept in! Woohoo! Today is a chill day! No major hikes planned, just a day to explore Moab a bit and check out a few scenic road pull-overs. Oh and do laundry; a necessary evil on a road trip.
For breakfast we found this really cool South African restaurant called “Hidden Cuisine”. It was a pleasant surprise in Moab. Great service and food; we highly recommend going here. We might even go back for dinner.
Moab is touristy, and it has loads of adventure activities. ATV tour companies, boat rides on the Colorado River, ziplining, sky diving, inner tube rentals, rock climbing, etc. You name it, they have it. But you can also find off the beaten path gems as well, if you do your research.
One crowdless gem was a short .6 mile trek on the Poison Spider Trail, which takes you to some dinosaur tracks and petroglyphs. It was quite the scramble up the rocks, so much so, that just as we nearly hit the top, I listened to my gut (and my shaky legs), and stopped. The vision of one bad misstep and falling backwards got embedded in my head, so I tapped out. Ken however, who loves to climb rocks, was in his element and went ahead of me to take photos of the dinosaur tracks. The tracks were from Eubrontes (about 6 feet tall) and Grallator (size of a turkey) dinosaurs. The tracks are embedded in Navajo Sandstone and dated over 190 millions years ago.
And no we didn’t see any spiders 🕷 on the trail.
On the drive back into town, there were several more pull-outs to see petroglyphs (pecked or chiseled drawings) and pictographs (painted). These ancient wall markings are always so fascinating to me. The photos just don’t do them justice. We saw two types of rock art here which were Archaic and Fremont. Archaic rock art consists of petroglyphs and pictographs depicting anthropomorphs (human characteristics) and zoomorphs (animal), with curvilinear lines, zigzags, wavy lines, concentric circles and abstract symbols. Fremont rock art depicts trapezoidal anthropomorphs with horns, bighorn sheep, dogs, hunting scenes with weapons and abstract objects. I had zero knowledge about any of this, so it’s been really cool to learn all about the native history in this area.
Once back in town we stopped at Moab Coffee Roasters for an iced coffee (it’s about 94 degrees now). They are a cute hole in the wall roaster, with great cold brew. They also have ice cream, but we didn’t indulge, this time.
The next stop was a lovely scenic drive to Bull Canyon Overlook, and more dinosaur tracks. This was worth the drive up the mountain, with easy access to several footprints by a Theropod dinosaur (one with hollow bones and 3-toed limbs). These ones date back to 200 million years ago when the area was a shallow sea. This is hard to believe when you figure we were 8445 feet from the valley floor. Don’t forget to check out the overlook too, by heading to the right of the parking lot and wind through the brush to the overlook. It’s quite amazing.
Back to reality and now it’s laundry time, dinner time and bedtime as tomorrow is an early rise day for a morning hike before the temps rise into the high 90’s.
Byrds On A Wire 