A Jeeper’s paradise - Dome Plateau

Red rocks.

Big climbing rocks.

Deep gorges cutting through the earth.

Snow cap mountains in the background.

Welcome to Moab, UT.

Every year one hundred and fifty jeeps descend upon Moab like a swarm of metallic bees covering the land in what is known as Easter Jeep Safari weekend. We may be Jeep owners, but as neither Dave nor I l enjoy being around lots of people, we arrived as most of the safari crowd was headed out.

Completely out of character for us, we met a friend in this desert paradise to enjoy off a week of roading together.

Weird.

Also, surprisingly nice.

Words cannot do justice to the beauty found here. Every trail we were on held a view, a monument, an experience all its own.

Our first group outing was an evening one as I chose to work for the first couple of days at site. Totally worth doing the Dome Plateau trail in the late afternoon though. Probably more so than during the day and not just because we were the only ones exploring it.

Why you ask?

The trail takes a couple of hours to reach its apex, possibly less if you don't stop constantly to play in the rock faces and take photos.

But seriously, when you have views like this, how can you not stop and take pictures?

Getting there aside, the real reason for taking the Dome Plateau trail is the cliff view looking over vibrantly red, elongated hills scattered across a green valley with a meandering river running alongside. The setting sun lit up the rocks in a spectacular glow, a sight daylight could never equal.

Of course, the real fun is continuing along the rocky terrain as dusk turns into night. There is something both terrifying and thrilling in bouncing along an unknown path with limited visibility miles from anywhere with no cell signal that excites the senses and makes one feel alive.

We stopped for moment well into pitch blackness to gather our senses and admire the starry sky. No distant ambient light interfered with the twinkling show above. Just us and them.

Does it get better than this?

Yes, yes it does.