Moab Day 2- Arches March 30, 2011

We spent the day at Arches, literally, we walked our feet off. We spent most of nine hours walking and walking and walking or should we say hiking.
We stopped at the Visitors Center and then hurried to catch a 10:30 AM Ranger led hike at the Windows. We caught up quickly and saw Turret Arch, North and South Windows and other surrounding features. We decided the tour group went a little slow for us. We took lots of pictures and viewed the arches from various angles and sides. Next we headed to Delicate Arch. This hike is considered strenuous and the name is not undeserved. It is only 3 mile round trip. It took us about a half hour to go the 1.5 miles but it exerted a lot of energy. At one point looking back to the parking lot looked soooooooo far away. Then the interesting part began. Basically, you just make your way over the slick rock. Stephanie and Jenny were always ahead of us with boundless energy and having a lot of fun. They stayed up high on the rock towards the end and not so much with the path. They climbed up to the inside of an arch or window. We joined them. It was peaceful, beautiful and a great view of Delicate Arch and the people traversing the rock to be closer, taking pictures and some scaling down a precarious spot to drop down to another level to view the arch from a different angle. We decided not to go down that spot after watching the people. Later, as we were right at Delicate Arch the scary spot that was precarious seemed even more dangerous than we previously thought.

Delicate Arch is absolutely stunning. It is the arch you see pictures of every where advertising Utah. It is in the middle of nowhere and even seems to be on the edge of the sandstone area. It has a big bowl near it on one side and sheer cliff drop offs that go straight down on the other side. It is perfectly formed and looks as if it is carefully positioned in it's place. We went back the way we came and then found a way around to the area where those going down the precarious route had landed. It was fun. Frequently you are alone with just your family and little or no evidence of the world in sight. It is peaceful and still. There was a breeze that helped keep us cool. We had stopped at the grocery store in the morning to pick up food for lunch, water bottles, and food to snack on. That was a big help. At the end of every hike we were ready to eat again. We also snacked on the trails. We spent well over an hour at Delicate Arch. It took a little less than 30 minutes to hike back but it felt so short compared to going up. We stopped to look a real native American petroglyphs and and old one room homestead house. After some lunch in the car, sitting we moved on to Devil's Garden.

We spent another 3 hours at least at Devil's Garden. We hiked to Landscape Arch and then we took the primitive trail to Parition Arch, Navajo Arch and on the return we looked at the collapsed Wall Arch. The primitive trail was not your typical National Park Trail. We realized later that the trail had been destoryed in one area when Landscape Arch lost a huge chunk (180 tons)in 1991. Then the trail had been compromised again when Wall Arch fell in April 2008. So basically the trail currently sidesteps these areas by going up various areas of slick rock.

Partition Arch was well worth the hike. It is an arch with a center parition dividing it into two sides. The one side seems like a normal arch but the other side is a smaller window type opening. However, from many angels they look fairly similar.
Navajo Arch was one of my favorites. It was incredibly peaceful, protected, with open spaces of sand and beautiful evergreens well spaced all around. It was secluded and had a protective area on the other side of it. There would be no way to see it without hiking to it. I would have been happy to have my camp gear and food to stay. It seemed like a great place to have a group talk with super accoustics. It was so peaceful. Well worth the walk.

Moab- Canyon Lands, March 29, 2011

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Rand, Karla, Stephanie and Jenny traveled to southeast Utah. The scenery was new and different. We headed to Canyon Lands. It was breath taking gorgeous scenery. The canyons were everywhere. We had never seen anything like it before. We walked and hiked and walked some more. We hiked to the edge of plateua's and back. We could see the Green River that starts in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming with it's green color and we could see the Colorado River that surprised us with not only it's brown color but it's snail pace movement. Both rivers were very slow moving and the Colorado looked still. We looked out over the vast lands with canyons, and fins, needles, snaking rivers, the LaSal Mountains to the East and other mountains to the south and west. The snow capped the brilliant blue mountains with crystal clear air. The silence and stillness and peace was truly amazing. We ended our day by stopping at the Dead Horse Point State Park. It was the highlight. 360 degree, panaramic views all day.

We had a funny thing happen. The GPS told us to turn on a small road, the turns kept taking us to smaller areas and finally it told us to turn on "an unpaved road". We turned around and stopped at a motel/truck stop and asked a bit and found a map. Yes, the GPS was correct. It would take us to Canyon Lands via a 35 mile unpaved road that would not have let us cross the river and they really don't reccomend the road with any rain. You just won't make it through.

We had a lot of fun. We ended so late and soooooooo very hungry. Food is a good thing! We sat in the hot tub at the hotel for awhile and we were all happy to fall asleep.