HIKING HAPPENINGS - August 2025

Though I’d worked with Trail Mix volunteers on the Intrepid Mountain Bike Trails and hiked around Dead Horse Point before, I’d never done the park after dark. July’s full Buck Moon was my chance. I drove nine miles northwest from Moab up US 191, turned left/west on Utah 313 and traveled 23 gorgeous miles, then turned east at the sign to go another four miles to the entrance to Dead Horse Point State Park. I paid my fee and joined just three other cars in the parking lot, arriving two hours early for the ranger-led full moon hike. Taking advantage of low sun-setting light, I hiked the Visitor Center Nature Trail, a paved 1/8-mile wander with informational trailside signs. Then I walked south along the East Rim Trail, enjoying a contemplative solitaire among the rocks and junipers as the sun set about 8:44 p.m. The restrooms were open, but the Visitor’s Center was closed. The park is open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.; the Visitor’s Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

And what about this park’s name? Sometime in the late 1880s, cowboys trapped a group of wild horses in a brush-and-branch corral on The Neck, a narrow pinch of land only 90 feet wide, fencing them off from the rest of the mesa 2,000 feet above the Colorado River. Left too long without water, the horses died of thirst, earning the park its somber name.

At the steps of the Visitor’s Center, curious travelers started gathering at 9 p.m., one boasting, “We saw Canyonlands and Arches yesterday, it’s Zion and Bryce tomorrow!” There were 40 of us: kids, couples, families, and some singles with their good dogs. After some preliminary introductions, we watched the rise of the Buck Moon at 9:44 p.m. This particular night, it was orange, colored by the wildfire in the La Sal Mountains, but, as it rose higher, it regained its bone white-and-gray features. We all then hiked about half a mile to our destination, some ephemeral pools.

These seasonal basins of water in the slick rock “come and go, much like the people in Moab,” quipped our leader, Ranger Jimmy. Pools of rainwater and sediment create small desert ecosystems, though this night they were dry as Utah is in a drought. A meteorologist on the radio said, “Utah is the only one of the Four Corners states that’s missed out on the monsoon hootenanny.” These shallow habitats were only ghostly, gray discs in the moonlight. When rains do come, the basins can quickly fill with life, including fairy, tadpole, and clam shrimp, whirligig beetles, and toad tadpoles, all enticing birds to snatch them up.

Walking in the moonlight was fairly easy, but when I went through shadows from junipers, cliff rose, and other shrubs, it was still dark at my feet. Regular flashlights are discouraged, though some brought flashlights with a red light feature, so I carefully followed a little boy who carried one. Ranger Jimmy asked people wanting to be sworn in as Junior Rangers to gather behind one of the pools, candidates ranging in age from 6 to maybe 45. After repeating a rhyming pledge to respect this desert environment, Jimmy handed out badges. We all then turned around and headed back to the parking lot. One woman commented, “I’ve never hiked with so many people before, but I liked it! Makes me want to join a hiking club!” You’ll get your own chance to enjoy a moonlit hike at Dead Horse Point on the nights of 2025’s next full moons: August 9, September 7, October 6, November 5, and December 4. Check the park’s website for exact times and dates at www.stateparks.utah.gov/parks/dead-horse/

California native Kathy Grossman is an artist, writer, and nature journalist who’s lived and hiked in Moab since 2011. For more on seasonal ecosystems, see “Ephemeral Pools of Moab with Tim Graham” on YouTube.”