Getting high in the La Sals...

today with Rachel, our objective, the the summit of the tallest peak in the entire range:

It took us exactly two hours to make the 2,700 foot climb of Mount Peale from La Sal Pass, much of it on huge broken blocks of trachyte porphyry:

Here's the view northwest towards Moab (the green oasis in the bottom of the distant valley in center) from the peak of this laccolithic mountain:

The descent was only marginally faster moving down the sharp-edged scree: