part 1 of my trip:
Colorado
We left around 6 a.m. and decided to go to Poudre Canyon, Colorado. Poudre (pronounced 'pooter') is right outside of Fort Collins and a very pretty canyon. There are great hikes, climbs, white water rafting, and more.
It took us a little bit to find a camp site, but we eventually did. We climbed on day 1 at an area called 'Crystal Wall'. We planned on doing primarily 1 pitch sport climbing on this trip since we did not have a trad rack nor the experience.
We originally planned on climbing at one spot called 'The Palace' but unfortunately the river was very high, which prevented us from crossing it.
I wish I had a few more pictures of Poudre, but here they are:
No real photos climbing for the most part, simply because it was only us two. We did a few climbs in Poudre Canyon, both 5.9s. It was a tad cold there at night but I still slept fine. Due to the area being inaccessible, we decided to only go there for one night instead of two and decided to head towards Moab the next day. We planned on stopping in Golden, CO (right outside of Denver) for a short few hours to go climb.
Golden is alright. The rock is fairly polished and the climbing in the area we were at was so-so. There are areas outside of Golden that I've heard about that are solid, but I probably will not return to the North Table Mountains (area I was in).
Here are some photos of that area:
We arrived in Moab late at night, around 6. Normally, it would be difficult to find a camp spot this late in the day, but we had another issue- our car was overheating. We drove a Honda CRV and it was my sister's car. Unfortunately, she also had the same issue about 2 weeks earlier.
Unable to drive and look for camp spots, we had to bunk at a motel for the night in Moab. We bought some more antifreeze and continued to check it along the way.
Moab, Utah
Moab is an interesting area. The primary features are the massive arches.
Here is a link on them.
We only did Canyonlands one day and Arches the next. We did a VERY quick tour of both and didn't really spend a whole lot of time there. Amanda didn't enjoy Moab much and we were going to go on our way quickly to Zion.
And that pretty much concludes Moab. We drove another 5 hours or so to Zion National Park, which is in southern Utah.