Pullin' Chocks

Fantasy Canyon and Moonshine Arch

When we said that we were going to go to Utah for the first time, many people remarked, "Oh you're going to go look at the rocks." Sure enough, Utah has some fascinating rocks and this post highlights two such locations. Moonshine Arch is not a well known arch and is only about 8 miles north of Vernal, Utah. Moonshine is on BLM land and has a dirt road leading to the arch from Rt 191. At first we drove right past the dirt road turn off, but then once we got onto the dirt road it had some signs leading us in the correct direction at the various intersections.

The first thing we saw when we turned onto the dirt road was Molly's Nipple. Yep that's it below.

We drove as far as we felt comfortable and found a spot to park off the dirt road. Gari sets her GPS to track for the hike to Moonshine Arch.

Below is a photo of why we stopped. We decided we didn't want to drive on road conditions like this and thought it may even get worse farther down the road. We are parked just before the gate at the top of the hill. Kind of rough we thought...

There goes Gari leading the way from where we parked.

We came to an intersection and a sign, and behind the sign we stumbled across a Geocache.

The Geocache was in a miniature Altoids box. It had a traveling pin inside. We pulled out the log sheet and found we were the very first to sign it, Pullin' Chocks 9/2016.

These rocks along the way look like they were molten at one time. You can see how they oozed into wrinkles.

This rock hill is tilted at an angle, it even looks like it may have cooling bubbles along one edge. Another explanation could be a variation in hardness in the sandstone and erosion took some material away faster than other.

Before long Gari found the Moonshine Arch.

A view from underneath of the arch.

A view from the cave behind the arch looking back out at Gari underneath.

Steve enters the cave behind the arch for a closer look.

Below is the end of the cave, it didn't go very far back, but looks like it would make a nice shelter.

Amazing texture and color looking back out the cave in the opposite direction.

Below is a view from underneath the arch looking into the cave.... there goes Steve.

After a good look and walkabout around the Moonshine Arch, we head back down the dusty trail toward a future adventure.

One more excursion in Jensen before heading south to Moab, Utah; it is to a mysterious place named Fantasy Canyon. There are found other worldly rock formations, some of the legends suggest the underworld. We know this area was part of the shallow ocean millions of years ago, and the rocks look to us like sandstone erosion by wind and waves. See what you think...

We drove past Green River...

...past the many oil well operations

...startled a few Prong Horn Antelope along the way

Until we arrived at Fantasy Canyon. We parked Pepé and headed toward the strange rock formations...

We weren't sure where the trail was, but we found this small canyon leading upward and thought that a little higher ground may give us a better idea of the area layout, so upward we went.