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Overheard a guy in Moab say the only real route is off-trail
I was grabbing a coffee at the Moab Diner last week and this guy at the next table was going on about how marked trails are for tourists. He said, 'If you're not making your own line through the canyon, you're just walking.' It got me thinking about how much we rely on guidebooks and apps. I've done the Chesler Park Loop a dozen times, but maybe he has a point about missing the adventure. Has anyone else ditched the planned route and just gone for it, and how did that turn out?
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susanh462mo ago
Marked trails are just someone else's idea of where you should go, and that guy in Moab has a point. The best days I've ever had in the desert came from picking a drainage on a map and just seeing where it went without checking a guidebook first. Sure, you might eat a little crow and backtrack sometimes, but isn't that the whole point of actually exploring instead of following a line on a screen?
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spencer_johnson223mo ago
My buddy and I tried that off trail stuff near Fisher Towers last fall. We ended up spending three hours bushwhacking through a dry wash just to hit a dead end at a cliff band. The "adventure" was mostly sunburn and arguing over whose idea it was. Sometimes the marked trail is there because it's the only way that actually goes through.
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