{"id":11824,"date":"2020-04-16T15:32:45","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T15:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usnomadstudio.com\/usnomads\/blog\/?page_id=11824"},"modified":"2020-04-18T08:08:15","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T08:08:15","slug":"notes-from-the-road-1-7-march-2020","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/usnomadstudio.com\/usnomads\/blog\/?page_id=11824","title":{"rendered":"Notes From the Road — 1 – 8 March 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NOTES FROM THE ROAD<\/h2>\n
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< more recent<\/a> | 1 – 8 March 2020 | older ><\/a><\/p>\n

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Enjoying Moab Trails…<\/h5>\n


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Poison Spider, Where Eagles Dare and Golden Spike…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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8 March 2020:<\/strong> Great day to explore some of Moab’s more challenging trails with John Marshall of Coyote Land Adventures. Enjoyed the obstacles and the incredible views on Poison Spider, Where Eagles Dare and Golden Spike. Was great fun getting to use the full range of the Jeep’s capabilities out there …
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Out on the Seven Mile Rim…<\/h5>\n


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A Day on Seven Mile Rim…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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7 March 2020:<\/strong> Took some time to explore and play a bit out on one of Moab’s most beautiful trails, the Seven Mile Rim, which includes a variety of terrain types and so much incredible red rock desert scenery. Even saw antelope out grazing in the distance …
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The Canyonlands…<\/h5>\n


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Mesa Arch and the scenic drive…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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6 March 2020:<\/strong> Made a quick trip to the canyonlands this afternoon, and did the short Mesa Arch hike even though the weather remained cold and winter-like. It was a beautiful walk thought, and the view at the terminus was a great reward …
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Delicate Arch…<\/h5>\n


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A magical moment…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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5 March 2020:<\/strong> With the weather still so cold and winter-y it was a good time to check out Delicate Arch, which is usually so crowded with visitors that it can be unpleasant. Turned out to be a perfect idea and got to experience the magic of the late afternoon light making the arch glow with only a few fellow visitors quietly appreciating the moment …
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Dinosaur Tracks…<\/h5>\n


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Tracking big things…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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4 March 2020:<\/strong> Went into Arches via the back way today to check out the dinosaur tracks. Also spent some time following more “normal” animal tracks in the sand and exploring the landscape …
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Exploring the area…<\/h5>\n


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Taking a few random dirt roads…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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3 March 2020:<\/strong> Today was more of a wandering day, taking random dirt roads to see where they go and just generally exploring in an area where there is so much magnificence that it is easy to overlook the small things …
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Moab and the Arches…<\/h5>\n


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Rambling through Arches NP…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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2 March 2020:<\/strong> Took a late afternoon ramble around Arches National Park even though it was quite cold and winter-like. On the upside of all that was the fact that it was relatively empty, and so a perfect time to explore otherwise crowded areas of the park …
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Monument Valley…<\/h5>\n


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Arizona to Utah drive…<\/strong><\/h6>\n


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1 March 2020:<\/strong> A long drive day today, going from Wickenburg AZ to Moab UT, with a stop to explore a little at Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation lands. It was cold and windy with unsettled skies, but an amazing first time experience of this incredible landscape …
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PREVIOUS NOTES FROM THE ROAD<\/a> ><\/a><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n
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THIS MONTH:<\/strong>
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\nA short stop in Moab for some classic red rock trail time…
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COMING UP SOON:<\/strong>
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\nRoadtrip across the country from west to east back to New York…

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\nJoining the Texas Rovers for their annual South Central Area Rover Rally (SCARR). SCARR is a four-day event geared towards Land Rover enthusiasts that attracts people from all over the globe. SCARR attendees get to experience the off-road capabilities of Land Rovers in the beautiful setting of the Barnwell Mountain Recreation Area. Texas Rovers has reserved the entire 1,850-acre BMRA off-road park located in Gilmer, Texas for activities that include guided trail runs, lectures and off-road training, the ladies-only Barbara Toy trail run and much more…

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\nHeading to Michigan for the Ladies Offroad Convention<\/a>, an action-packed, interactive 4-day weekend educating, motivating, and guiding for offroad ladies. The 4th Annual Convention will be held in Grand Blanc, Michigan from July 30th to August 2nd. Ladies will have many hands-on opportunities to gain all types of offroading skills, learn and engage with others as they share their stories with plenty of laughs along the way…
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ABOUT ARCHES<\/strong>
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\nArches National Park<\/a> has over 2,000 natural stone arches, in addition to hundreds of soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks. The park is situated just north of Moab and is bordered by the Colorado River in the southeast. It’s most famous sandstone arch is the red-hued Delicate Arch in the east, but Arches is home to the highest density of natural arches in the world. The national park lies above a salt bed, which transformed the landscape with the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. The salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places, and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone, was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded away. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation. The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual salt anticlines or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Most of the major formations visible in layer cake fashion throughout the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone or the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches …
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ABOUT MONUMENT VALLEY<\/strong>
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\nMonument Valley<\/a>, or as it is called in Navajo “Ts\u00e9 Bii\u02bc Ndzisgaii” which means “valley of the rocks”, is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of sandstone buttes.
\nLocated within the territory of the Navajo Nation at the Arizona\u2013Utah border, it is accessible from U.S. Highway 163. Monument Valley has been featured in films since the 1930s when director John Ford used the location for a number of his best-known films, and in the process defined what most people think of when they imagine the “American West.” It is also one of the most photographed points on earth. This sandstone masterpieces tower at heights of 400 to 1,000 feet, framed by scenic clouds casting shadows that roam the desert floor. The angle of the sun accents these graceful formations and the landscape overwhelms–not just by its beauty but also by its size. The fragile pinnacles of rock are surrounded by miles of mesas and buttes, shrubs and trees, and windblown sand, all comprising the magnificent colors of the valley. This area was once a lowland basin. For hundreds of millions of years, materials that eroded from the early Rock Mountains deposited layer upon layer of sediment which cemented a slow and gentle uplift, generated by ceaseless pressure from below the surface, elevating these horizontal strata quite uniformly one to three miles above sea level. What was once a basin became a plateau. Natural forces of wind and water that eroded the land spent the last 50 million years cutting into and peeling away at the surface of the plateau. The simple wearing down of altering layers of soft and hard rock slowly revealed the natural wonders of Monument Valley today. …
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