Recently my husband and daughter ran the 2026 Moab Trail 1/2 Marathon. They were originally going to do the marathon but weren't able to train quite enough, so they switched to the half. This is a unique marathon in that it is somewhat remote. The night before, we picked up their packets at the starting (and finish) line. It didn't seem very organized and it was down a pretty narrow road. The next day, to get to the course, the runners had to be dropped off at an elementary school and then got shuttled to the starting line. Spectating was basically impossible so we opted to do other activities while they ran. The weather was really nice with temps in the 50's, sunny, and not much wind. The very old shuttle van they rode in: The course was 13.1 miles with about 1800 feet of elevation. It was quite rugged but beautiful. Some of the bridges had washed out because of the extensive rains the week before, so they put down boards to get across the water. There were some challenges...
This last weekend we had a fun time in Moab. We drove down Friday morning with our oldest son and then met Susanna and her husband for a canyoneering adventure. Something we noticed along the way was a lot of green! Utah has had a lot of rain lately, especially the Moab area and we don't remember it being so green before, especially in November. Halloween weekend had 4 straight days of rain and they had to shut down the highway for a while because of all the water. Fortunately the weather was dry and very pleasant while we were there. David had picked out the "U-turn" canyoneering route for us to do. Since my experience is quite limited, the goal was something not too difficult. We parked at Park Place in Arches and then hiked over to the beginning of the route. The beginning of the route required some challenging scrambling. The scrambling was difficult for me but several things helped: the solicitous support of the people with me, borrowing my DIL's approach shoes...