MOAB

By Kelsey Bang June 5, 2010July 20, 2018 0 Comments 6 min read

Jake and I got the great opportunity to go to Moab and do some real wilderness repealing with some of his co-workers! It was a blast! Jake is so lucky to be able to work with some really wonderful, giving, kind people! I had a blast being able to meet some of the people he spends his days with. The drive up to Moab was pretty! It was fun to sing songs and spend time with Jake. When we first arrived in Moab we met at the bottom of the National Park, to have a training and awareness video from guide. This is when I got to meet our awesome group, and we learned all about “the fiery furnace!!!!!” dun dun dun!!!! Where we would be hiking and repealing in the next day! After the instruction on not to step on “the crust”( crypto biotic crust) we went to “zaks” for an all you can eat pizza buffet. I guess we thought we were doing a triathlon the next day and needed to stalk up on carbs. The pizza was great! They even had buffalo chicken pizza! Yumm!

After dinner, the group was pooped from a long day of adventures they had had, so Jake and I went back into the National Park to go hike Arches! Here a few pictures of some of the different landscapes in the park and how beautiful it is! I think Heavenly Father did a great job!

After an adventurous hike! We made it to arches! Cool! This is my second time being here! I would love to come again.
Jake and I are to the right of this picture standing under the arch. The arch is pretty big.A happy couple to be in Moab.
Oh look! Starlite the unicorn came to join!!! I packed her as a surprise in my backpack! I was glad she decided to come and play on this hike. After the hike we went to the campsite and I was lucky and got to sleep in the back of Jake’s truck on a mattress. I don’t think everyone else got that good of a nights rest. I love a night under the stars.
6am! Bright and early, ready to hike! And as the hike was coming to an end in the middle of the day we were so happy to start early and to of beat most of the heat. We are at the “fiery furnace.” You are only allowed to go in her with special passes, a guide or an experienced fiery furnace person. Luckily a man at Jake’s work was! Russ was our guide and boy did he know his stuff. To me, the entire place was a maze and he had the hidden routes down to many secret arches, and beautiful spots down to a T! Way to go Russ! He has definitely done a lot of young men trips in his day! Russ was like a gazelle.
Remember Brett from the Color festival? He works with Jake! Here is Brett and Jake ready for an adventure! Waters are full, snacks and lunches are packed! And don’t forget..a last minute bathroom trip!
Let the hike begin!

Many boulders to climb! How cool is this????! So neat!

You really have to know what your doing to guide your way threw this! I felt so lucky to be able to go on this trip! I really got to go on an experience many people dream of, and not many get to do 🙁

This was called “surprise arch.” Because you are walking in crevices, and all of a sudden….Surprise! a large arch is above your head! I guess a couple years back, some of the arch fell off. In hundreds of years, this arch and others will no longer be because of wither over time.
We went threw many crevices and small places. Some I thought I would not fit in,but somehow, we all got through.

Look how beautiful this place is! Jake I started to think this fiery furnace was looking a bit familiar! (thunder mountain ride at disneyland?)

Sadly this is the only shoot of the group we have. My one regret of the trip is we forgot to take a group picture! Inside these crevices it was cold! It trapped nice cool air.

Wow were high, and venturing to go higher!
Well, I guess I lied, this is a group picture of all of us..but we needed one with everyone’s faces that you could see.
This is a great time! Jake and I had a blast! We are getting quite excited to repel! We went to 2 rock gyms and practiced repelling so we would hopefully not be so afraid repelling off 160 feet high mountain.
At the top of this rock you wonder how the heck you are going to get down this rock. You go under it threw a little opening one at a time. Intense. After this we slid down on our rears. That part was the hardest of the whole trek. Kinda scary..and I liked it.
Real ancient gorilla finger wholes!
Getting ready to repel! I am so impressed how Russ knows how to do this all. Setting up a repel in nature is really intense. The guide is the last one down,and some how they have to get all the stuff, like the ropes and repelling materials down from the top to the bottom.

Jake went down before me so I didn’t get to get any pictures of him,but luckily our group was awesome and took pictures of everyone! What a great captured picture of Jake’s static hair!

Now its my turn! Sadly,you couldn’t get the whole length of the distance from top to bottom, but we got to do our first repel at 160 feet high. It was so much fun! Oh, I hope someday I will get to go again! To be honest, I think doing the 30 feet repels at the rock gym was scarier than this. I think that is because it was my first time? In nature it was so beautiful, my nerves were not acting up.

Some one waits at the bottom for you, holding the rope in case you start going to fast. They can pull the rope and stop you. Thanks sir!

Down at the bottom it was so quiet and still. Look at the pretty wind waves in the sand.

I didnt realize how high up we were because we got to do 2 repels! The first at 160 feet and then another repel from their at 50 feet! Thats over 200 feet high! COOL! Heres Jake coming down the second repel.

Doesn’t something like that look pretty, and not climbable? False, you can hike up it. Watch out for the poison ivy in front!

Our amazing guide Russ, working his magic and showing us all how it is done.

Last leg of the hike.The sun was starting to shine hard and we were all glad we were going to be able to get out of the heat soon.

Skull arch. ( I just made that name up,because I think I remember that being what its called….or maybe that was on the movie Goonies?)

Last arch of the trip! And we get to stand on it!

Now do you see what I mean? This is 100 percent Thunder Mountain right here.

After our hike I told Jake I would do anything to find a Mexican Taco stand on the side of the street. After going threw the whole town we didn’t find anything. Then we stopped at the gas station and right behind happened to be a Navajo taco stand! Life truly couldn’t be any better after that! A great magical hike, repelling, new friends, and Navajo tacos! Life is so wonderful!

OK, life still got better! Some of the group told Jake and I about this magical water whole, so on our way home we stopped there! This Jake trying to decided whether or not to climb up the water fall to jump in the water. So we decided to go together and go explore the water whole! It was fun.

We even found ancient hieroglyphics! Are they real? I don’t know, but they actually seemed pretty legit to us.

This was the entrance out of the water whole. Pretty. After the water whole we headed back home. We got to stop at a neat dinosaur rock and fossil store. This trip was a fantastic time! Thanks team for a supurb trip!