Kristie & Tom McConnon

For the third consecutive year, Kristie and I made it down for the annual Massive Moab Trip for a weekend of hiking, camping, thrill-seeking and all around good times. It’s hands-down one of the best summer trips you could imagine. For additional context, read the intro to the post of last year’s trip. WARNING: This is the largest, most picture-heavy, bloated post I’ve published to date. There, now you’ve been warned.

This year we had a special guest from back East…my brother Coleman flew all the way out from Massachusetts to join us for the adventure.  He just graduated from high school, so my parents bought him flights as a gift (not too shabby, eh?)

To make the most of the trip, we packed up all our gear and left on Thursday for the group camp site outside of Moab. This year it was both easier to find (thanks to better maps and iPhone GPS) and huge. We arrived on the tail end of a rainstorm that produced an amazing rainbow and later, sunset.

After setting up camp (with an awesome pop-up tent c/o Leah and Johnny) we met up with old friends and congregated around the campfire for food, conversation, banana boat treats and an impromptu dance party. People kept rolling in all throughout the night…by  morning the place was hoppin’.

We got up early on Friday (thanks, in part, to the 30-foot campsite flyover c/o Jordan Mower and his airplane….gooooood morning) and made our way directly to Arches National Park. Coleman had never been to any of Utah’s reserves before, so we were anxious to show him some of the beautiful hikes we’d come across in years past, and discover some new ones while we were at it.We started by driving through the park, all the way to the Devil’s Garden trailhead. From there we hiked in and spent hours scrambling from one amazing geologic formation to the next.

It was a little unsettling to walk by Wall Arch, a formation that collapsed under its own weight on August 4th, 2008. We had taken a few pictures under it before it crumbled…now it’s just a mess of rock debris. (It didn’t, however, keep us from scurrying atop plenty of other arches we found this weekend.)

Check out  pictures from various hikes we did that morning and afternoon (8 straight hours of it!):

Around 4:30, Leah and Jonny arrived and met up with us for some fire-grilled pizza at Zak’s in downtown Moab. From there, we reconvened with the larger group and headed over to Delicate Arch for the traditional MMT sunset hike. If you’ve hiked Delicate before, you’ll know how breathtaking it is to round the final corner of the trail and take it all in. We took a bit of time to relax near the top, and then gathered for a big group shot and assorted other pictures. Here’s a sample:

Back at camp later that evening we squeezed me, Kristie, Coleman, Leah and Jonny into what must have been a 3 man tent. It was certainly cozy, and borderline comical.

Saturday morning we headed over to the huge sand hill to play, race and launch ourselves off the conveniently-situated boulder that sits about 3/4 of the way down.

Every year we have a sand hill race…I’m the one on the far right, coming in at 4th place:

Since it was Father’s Day the following morning, many people wanted to head out a little early…so the annual BBQ was rescheduled for lunch. This gave us enough time to get some of the sand out of our teeth and hair before joining up with everyone at the city park. The BBQ, as always, was phenomenal. Austin and company prepared appetizers (bruschetta), steaks (Montreal/brown sugar/garlic/?), chicken (lemon-pepper), corn on the cobb (grilled in husk), mint-lime mojitos (tasty, yet virgin), and Banana’s Foster for dessert (to die for). People played Ultimate, chilled in the park and enjoyed the good food (despite a passing drizzle). While we were over testing our balance on the slack line, there was a pretty epic ice cream fight, which thankfully, we did not get mixed up in.

Immediately after lunch we took off to Left Hand…our favorite off-the-map cliff jumping spot. Here’s a quick clip of me jumping:

After playing around there for a while, we kept hiking up the trail to upper Left Hand–a spot we’d never been before that offered another pool to jump into. We snapped a few shots while we were up there:

That night, most people had left for home, so at the campsite there were only a few other tents besides ours. We made a fire, cooked tin-foil dinners, watched the gorgeous sunset, and then, out of nowhere, a HUGE wind/lightning/thunder storm blew in. In minutes the wind had flattened our tents, all but extinguished our fire, and blew our camp chairs into the embers. We were scrambling around trying to secure everything that wasn’t tied down. At one point Coleman took off running  to chase down a neighboring tent that was hurtling  end over end through the desert scrub brush. I could see him silhouetted against the skyline everytime there was a bolt of lightning that lit up the sky. Eventually, the storm passed, and we were able to regroup and get situated for the night…but it was a pretty awesome experience while the storm was raging.

The next day we got to explore Canyonlands National Park before making our way out of town. It’s got a barren sort of beauty that I’ve never witnessed before. Some of the hikes and views are extraordinary.

All in all it was once again an unforgettable trip…I’m always amazed by the natural beauty of this state. It was awesome, also, to be among such good friends and family. I’m not sure if there will be an MMT ’10…but if there is, I have no doubt it will live up to expectations.

[btw, if there are any MMT admins reading this...thank you for putting together such a rad trip. You've outdone yourselves once again]