Mike G. pointing to the now-distant peninsula we rounded before stopping for lunch. It is probably only a few miles back down the trail but already appears distant.

We gained some pretty good elevation right before our lunch stopping point (around mile 27 or so). The climb included surfing through some fine Moab sand...while going uphill (but not a very long stretch). The cool thing about the sand was that it proved we were the first to come through--at least since the last time the wind really got going. Nothing on the surface of the sand beyond the small tracks of a few desert creatures and the arcs and half-circles left by grass blowing back and forth in the wind.