Desert High

Le Monde Est a Pleurer–Jean LeLoup

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The desert high season, of fall and spring, is a magical time. The energy is high, the visitors come in wave after wave, the weather is perfect every day, and it just doesn’t stop.


There’s one word for Moab in the fall: mayhem. But in the best possible sense of the word!

The climbers come from all over the world, plugging cams and hands into splitter sandstone at Indian Creek, and swarming up and down desert towers.

At any cliff on any day, you’ll hear French, Spanish, Norwegian, Japanese, Swedish, German, Russian and Italian being spoken.

The BASE jumpers arrive in groups, opening new exit points and charging into pretty sketchy climbing adventures to get on top of the best cliffs.

In the desert high season, the wild people are moving through the vertical world with all their energy–climbing up, falling down, flying around, in a multi-dimensional reality.

The Cessna jump plane seems to fly nonstop from the small Moab airport, with pilots/jumpers taking turns in the pilot seat to drop each other into the sky, and buzz through canyons to hunt new walls.

“This is Moab,” the tandem masters tell first-time jumpers at the drop zone. “You can do whatever you want!” People don’t always find this reassuring…..

It’s a crazy time, exhausting, exhilarating, and breathless. Keeping up can be hard. But winter is coming, the perfect days are shorter and shorter, and this is one ride you just don’t want to get off.