HIKING HAPPENINGS - October 2024

Fall is high-adventure time in Moab, but there may be reasons you decide you can’t—or perhaps shouldn’t—go hiking. Weather advisories, your own or a companion’s injuries or malaise, caretaking of young children, or the previous day’s overdoing it can make it sensible to stay in camp or in town. Consider spending your rest day at Moab’s library.

Our Grand County Regional Library won (out of 50 applicants) the Best Small Library in America Award for 2007, bestowed by the Library Journal and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Our comfortable and friendly gem of a space at 257 E. Center Street contains collections of maps, books, guides, and local history of particular interest to hikers, mountaineers, climbers and boulderers, and other seekers of the outdoors.

The STACKS. In Dewey Decimal system section 917.88, you’ll find books on climbing, hiking, and camping. The books in 792.22 and 796.5 include topics of survival strategies, compass and map navigation, plus mountaineering and camping information. Even the CHILDREN’S ROOM has outdoors-oriented books (same Dewey Decimal numbers, with a “J” in front), though younger kids may find the toys, puzzles, games, and crafts more engaging. The Summer Reading Program theme for 2024 was “Adventure Begins at Your Library.” Indeed!

The MAP DRAWERS. Sheets of US Geological Survey topographical maps, complemented by some wonderful “raised topo” maps in another bin, are a delight for studying the contours, ridges, canyons, and water courses of various areas of the west. The three-dimensional maps add a tactile experience to your 2D map reading. Touching routes on these maps (carefully and with clean hands, please) allow you to truly understand the terrain.

Opposite the cardboard Dr. Who sci fi show’s TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) time machine, overseen by a cut-out of Dr. Who actor David Tennant, is the YVON CHOUINARD COLLECTION. The mountaineering and environmentalist Chouinards (Yvon and his wife Malinda Pennoyer) did a lot of climbing around Moab and generously donated their book and journal collection in 2006. After meeting the Chouinards at a wedding in Castle Valley and hearing about the new library, then-Director Eve Tallman relates how the Chouinards shipped the collection to the old library (the present-day Sheriff’s Office). Librarians and volunteers then packed those treasures into City Market shopping carts and rolled them over to the new space. Included were magazines such as Alpine Journal, Climbing, The Desert, Mountain, La Montagne et Alpinisme, Mountain Gazette, The Mountain World, The Mountain Yodel, Rock & Ice, and Summit. The books in this collection cover avalanche safety, biography, and climbing and mountaineering adventure. These resources do not circulate, so take a seat at the nearby carrels and enjoy! Rarer and more fragile materials (including author-signed books) reside in a locked cabinet, available for perusal by request.

LOCAL INTEREST (north wall). Another fascinating collection features Utah and Colorado Plateau-specific subjects from hiking and mountain biking, climbing, and bouldering to area flora and fauna, ghost towns, camping, rock art, dinosaurs, place names, geology, and sand painting art.

The PERIODICAL ROOM (northeast corner of the building) features recent and back copies of Adventure Journal, Blue Mountain Shadows, Canyon Legacy, Climbing, The Climbing Zine, Deep Wild, Outside, Rock & Ice, and The Canyon Country Zephyr, published and illustrated by the irrepressible former Moabite Jim Stiles (1949–2024). You might also catch sight of Cosmo, the library’s resident tuxedo cat. You can even purchase Cosmo merch at the front desk such as shirts, tote bags, onesies, tank tops, and hoodies. A swirly impasto painting of a tuxie cat (though not actually Cosmo himself) hangs behind the reference desk.

On your rest day, you might also explore our outdoor equipment stores plus partake of fare from our restaurants, coffee shops, and, for a more moveable feast, the food trucks along West 100 North. Our library feast, though immoveable, feeds the soul, and, frankly, is a big reason I moved to Moab.