One more dusty trail in Moab ......

We had a good plan for our last day in Moab.    Head up a canyon jeep trail to Canyonlands and return via another jeep trail, making a large loop.    We headed up the Shafer Trail, which followed the Colorado River for awhile.

Then if opened up , rough but easy.  

At about 11 miles up the trail, we came to the scenic point where Thelma and Louise vaulted themselves into fabled history.    Very pretty up there. 

And behind us, on the middle high mesa, is Dead Horse Point.

The road narrowed and we climbed on................

And then, we came to this barricade just as we were to enter Canyonlands.   You'd think they could have put the sign further down and saved us a lot of dust.    Luckily there was room to turn around.

In this area, is a large potash producing plant.   Potash is potassium chloride and is used in fertilizer.   The settling pools are a brilliant blue edged with the white sand-like substance....assume the water evaporates and the scoop up the residue.  

After making the long trip back down to where we started, we opted to go up Long Canyon Trail and then come down again......it's relatively short but very scenic.  

At Pucker Pass, this large boulder makes for a Kodak moment.  

Easy to see our route from high above.   The Colorado is down there in the faint green area and beyond is the LaSal mountain range.    We came back to a car wash.   

That evening we joined Joe and Gay for dinner and to get helpful hints for our next adventures in Kodachrome State Park.       It's about a 6 hour drive down there and we look forward to meeting up with Cay and Ron......old friends that we met up with last summer in Canada.    

Still making plans for the days and weeks to follow.................stay tuned.  

PS:    I put an email subscription box for the blog up at the top.....have no idea how it works but others use this so thought I would try it.