Low Point: Great Salt Lake, UT (~4206')

I woke the next morning just as the sun rose over the walls of the Colorado River canyon:

After a quick breakfast on a flat-topped boulder, I packed my gear away and set off for the Great Salt Lake.

View from the boulder.

All morning I drove northwest through the most arid desert I'd yet seen on this entire trip. Texas and New Mexico had been dry, for sure, but at least their lowlands were filled with grass and scrub and cacti. Utah's were only rock and sand. Weird rock formations reared up beside the highway, mesas crumbled in the distance, and in between the road stretched ever on.

Side Trip: Arches National Park, UT (4085-5653')

I spent the first half of the next day bouldering in the Sandia foothills:

Hereabouts

and the second half recovering from my injuries (I didn't fall off a problem, I'll have you know--I tripped over a rock on the ground). That pretty much exhausted my list of things to do in the Sandias. I could have stayed longer--my hosts were glad to have me, and those two German Shepherds wanted me to move in for good--but the open road was calling me... and if, for some reason, I changed my mind about climbing those other high points (perhaps because I'd made it up and down from 10,678' without incident?) I'd have to do it soon. August was nearly up, and the alpine winter sets in quick.

So the next morning I departed Albuquerque (with a chunk of Sandia granite squirreled away in my luggage and a strange urge to rewatch Breaking Bad) and headed northwest up US-550. I drove through reservation land all morning, painted deserts dotted with the occasional small town or casino. At Shiprock I turned north and continued into Colorado. Here on the far side of the Rockies, the land was high, dry, and gently rolling, save for a few lonely ranges jutting into the skyline. Most notable of the bunch was Sleeping Ute Mountain, which lingered in my sights for several miles. The local Ute tribe likens its shape to a gigantic warrior resting from his battles against evil--a sort of western Mt. Mansfield.

Around midafternoon I crossed into Utah. I'd held off on filling my gas tank in New Mexico, hoping it'd be cheaper across the state line, but instead, to no one's surprise but mine, the price shot up 20 cents a gallon. Utah is pretty remote, you know; it's hard to ship fuel there. The higher prices held all the way through Idaho and eastern Oregon until I crossed the Cascades, where they jumped an additional ten cents for no apparent reason. Anyway, I filled up reluctantly in Monticello, then turned north onto US-191 and headed for the day's destination: Arches National Park.