Mount Waas, Grand County high point. 8-13-2020

 Our first view of Mount Waas, it is the far left peak in this picture below.

Moab has some beautiful scenery.

The road getting to the trail head was horrible!  It took forever to drive the 3 miles we needed to on this road.

This is our camp spot!  Unbelievable! I expected red rock, nothing like this!

Checking out the mountains around the area, trying to figure out which one was Mount Waas.

Turns out, Mount Waas was much higher, and much farther than either of the peaks in the picture above.

Our little lake was so beautiful!

(turns out that the peak in the center of this picture is much closer and much lower that Mount Waas.)

So we start our hike, and within the first quarter mile, we come upon this scat.  At this point, we are trying to decide if there is a bear or a mountain lion, so something else in our area.  Made us a little nervous starting out.

Looking up at this mountain, I assumed it was where we were headed.  Nope, not even close!  When we finally got to Waas, we looked DOWN on this peak!

A lot of this hike was on an old mining trail.

We came up over the ridge, and this is our first view of Waas!  It's crazy steep!

So you hike to the top of the peak  that has the weather station on it, and then you have to hike down a steep slope, and then hike up to Waas!  Doing the downhill was horrible!  In the picture below, Dean is tightening up his laces, so he doesn't lose toenails going down this steep downhill!

We made it!  I'm trying not to worry about how we are going to get down from here!

Amazing views.  You can see the city of Moab from this peak.

Remember the mountain I thought we were going to be hiking?  That is the second one in on the left side of the picture above!

We always bring a lunch, and sit at the top of the peak and have our picnic.  At the top of most peaks, there are these stacked rock walls.  Makes for a great shelter while we eat our lunch, because most of the peaks are really windy and cold on top.

Don't know why, but this peak had two survey markers on it.

It doesn't count unless we have taken our lovely posed pictures on the peak!

The peak in the back, towards the left side of this picture, is tomorrow's goal, Mount Peale.  That will be our last of the 29 county high points!

Coming back down, we pass the mountain that on the way up looked so tall.  It has trees growing on it, that should have been our first hint, the peak we were after was way above the tree line!

My shins took a beating!

After hiking for hours, and the temp reading 102 F in town, we took a dip in the Colorado River!  Now on to our last hike, Mount Peale.