We touched the Elephant's Butte!

The arctic front seemed to make its way all the way down towards Moab, so we had consistently cold weather for several days. With clouds lingering up above, there wasn't much sun to warm up the rock walls enough for us to climb, so we opted for a different adventure instead.

Elephant Butte is the highest point in Arches National Park, but there are no simple hiking trails to get you there. Instead, this is a technical canyoneering route, and a perfect match for our motivation given the circumstances with low temperatures.

Most of the route involved scrambling and trekking over slick-rock, which didn't require much other than sure footing and shoes with sticky rubber soles. Up we climbed through fins and small boulder fields and over large slabs of sandstone, until shortly before reaching our destination, we had to rappel down the steep wall of one of the fins coming off the butte.

It seemed strange to drop so far down just to scramble our way back up again, but in the complex labyrinth of fins, slabs, and high walls, it was the easiest route that could get us to the top of the butte. The rest of the ascent was a relatively short climb, until the vista exposed before us, revealing a vast country of red rocks, innumerable plants (that look much more benign from afar) spotting the scenery, and massive land features standing stark against a blue-grey background.

One more long rappel off of an overhanging wall with amazing briefly sun-lit views, and we set off on our mellow hike back to the warm car.