Dog Days of Moab
- July 2008
- Uncategorized
Starting in May, every time a hot day comes, I think, “Oh God! It’s about to be a million degrees! It’s all over! It’s summer!”
But it actually stays cool, in general, until the middle of June. Then, that’s it. It’s H O T hot! And although I often have the urge to bail to the Arctic Circle as soon as it breaks 90….and then 100, I also think there’s something to be said for experiencing all the extremes of a place you love. It’s intriguing to realize that you can stay in Moab in the summer (well, okay, staying in Moab kind of means also taking lots of trips to Rifle and Estes Park and other places that are not hot), and you can even have fun. It’s all about strategy.
First of all, driving a car around town is out. Second of all, don’t let direct sun touch you. Ever. Period. Until September, at least, or October if you want to stay on the safe side. These two rules may seem difficult to combine, but no one ever said living in Moab in the summer was going to be easy!
Being outdoors, my climbing wall is officially shut down for the season, though fortunately the holds don’t seem to melt. Touching them is not recommended, unless you are wearing oven mitts.
Fortunately Lisa just provided the community with a new, improved climbing wall in her driveway, complete with a swamp cooler. The trick is to show up in the morning, before it turns into an oven, and let the swamp cooler run for about an hour before you actually want to climb.
I wouldn’t exactly call it crispy, but hey, what else do we have to do when it’s 104 degrees out, and it’s great preparation for a winter trip to Thailand (or for those summer Rifle projects).
BASE jumpers are slightly better off than climbers in the summer, because if you start walking at about 6 a.m., it’s actually quite pleasant in the shade. With a little efficiency, and two packed rigs, you can even do two jumps before it’s way too hot to hike.
And it’s always nice and cool flying your parachute.
I guess, as with everything in life, you can always find a way to have fun within nature’s parameters. It’s all about adapting to one’s environment. I think what I like best about Moab, especially in the summer, is how clear that is, because humans really have to adapt if they want to live through a desert summer. Of I follow nature’s demands in this wild place, I not only get to survive, but also to know the desert in yet another extreme facet of its special character.
