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Good For Dogs

• November 2011
• Simple Living Climb Dogs

Hey Steph my wife and I were in Moab last Thanksgiving for the first time and fell in love with it. Our plan is to ditch family again and spend a week in Moab again. We did a lot in 1 week last year in the parks, etc… We wanted to know if you had any suggestions for good day trips with a dog, it was a bummer that the Parks didn’t allow her in. We are really looking for places to escape and seeing you are a local and the most awesome outdoor chick alive we thought we might email you for suggestions.
Lee

Hi Lee,
As my friend Jimmie Dunn always says, any place that’s good for a dog is good for a human–and any place that’s not good for a dog is no good for a human either. So far, I think that is one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard. That simple observation is one big reason I no longer live in Yosemite, and it’s a huge part of why I think that Moab is the best place to be. It’s why for the most part I just say no to National Parks….

Dogs belong outdoors as much as people. Probably more, actually. Two of my favorite John Muir stories are the ones about Stickeen, the little dog that crossed a glacier with him in Alaska, and the one about the beautiful Saint Bernard who explored Yosemite with him. I find it really weird that John Muir was the one who thought up National Parks, because if he was around now he wouldn’t be able to do a quarter of the things he did in Yosemite unless he wanted to spend all his time dodging rangers and getting tickets. But when faced with things that don’t make sense, the best thing is to just go find a place where they do. And that’s why we have Moab 🙂

Most of this area is BLM or National Forest: only Arches National Park and the Canyonlands are NPS controlled. The beauty of Moab is that just the tiniest little portion is locked away inside National Park Boundaries. This means that as long as you steer clear of those spots, you won’t be missing much anyway and your dog will be free to enjoy the beautiful desert together with you, free to be in the outdoors without unreasonable restrictions.

You can go down Kane Creek Canyon, to Indian Creek, the LaSals, Gemini Bridges–basically everywhere, with your pup.

Some of my favorite long runs and hikes with Cajun are the Amasa Back trail into the Jackson loop, Pritchett Canyon into Hunter/Gatherer Canyons and back up Kane Creek Road in a loop, and the Poison Spider Trail looped into the Portal Rim.

If you would like to see some arches, you don’t need to go into Arches NP. You can go up Negro Bill Canyon to Morning Glory Arch, you can hike to Corona Arch, and go out to Looking Glass Rock, which even has a super easy and fun climb up to the top of it with a great freehanging rappel down it. It’s very low, so your pup can hang out at the bottom while you do the climb, and see you the whole time, or else she can poke around the desert and entertain herself (it’s far from any main road).

I also like to run Porcupine Rim from River Road as an out and back and the Oowah Lake Trail looped onto Geyser Pass Road in the LaSals. You can climb up any of the LaSal Mountains with your dog too (Cajun has summitted Mount Tukuhnikivatz 🙂

If you are looking for water, hike up Left Hand Canyon of Mill Creek where it follows the creek and also leads to big swimming holes–Negro Bill also follows a creek that’s good for splashing. For bigger exploration, check out Mineral Canyon and Indian Creek.

There are basically multiple lifetimes of adventure here for you and your pup, and you never have to set foot or paw inside NPS borders.

I hope you see this in time for some suggestions on your trip, or maybe it will help for the next time since you will definitely be back–I got a little behind with letters leading up to Thanksgiving 🙂
Steph