We were anxious to leave the funky RV park and head to Arches NP with a real campground. The closer we got to Moab, the better the weather. We stopped to stock up on groceries once again and have lunch. We scoped the place out since we will be back here in a week for three nights over Memorial Day. Christy & Norm didn’t recognize the place since driving through in 1993. It has become a hip little town aiming to satisfy every kind of tourist. Outdoor activity places were on every corner offering mountain climbing, raft rides on the Colorado, fly fishing, bike tours, ATV’s and jeep tours!
It was a short drive up to Arches NP. The campground is 18 miles up at the end of the most beautiful scenic road. We decided to get set up in case it started to rain and then head back down to the Visitor Center to lay out the next three days. The skies never did open up and by sunset there were hardly enough clouds to make it interesting. The camp sites are nestled in among the red rocks. What a nice change from our last spot.
We really thought we might be getting tired of “canyons” by now but they are so different and beautiful we are loving each and every one! Water and ice, extreme temperatures and an underground salt movement are responsible for the sculpted rocks of Arches NP. This salt bed was new to us. Salt, five thousand feet thick, was deposited here 300 million years ago when the region filled 29 times with seas and each time evaporating . We learned how it all happened but I’ll not be retelling the process! In the process narrow fins or slabs were separated and it looks like the slabs have been laid on end. Erosion is responsible for the beautiful formations in every area we have visited but each area takes on a different look with all the other factors. There are over 2,000 arches in the park but some are just a sliver between rocks. New ones are being formed and old ones are falling down with constant change. In 1991 a rock slab 60 feet long, 11 feet wide and 4 feet thick fell from the underside of Landscape Arch. A landscape of fins, pinnacles, and arches are the result of natures work. It is beautiful!!!
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| Late Afternoon Light on Skylight Arch |
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| Giant Slabs of Sandstone Making Arch Formation Possible |
The weather channel forecast didn’t set us up for disappointment. We woke up to bright blue sunny skies! As we were sipping our coffee outside this morning a bright blue mountain bluebird perched right on the Manor. What a gorgeous brilliant blue bird! Landscape Arch is a must see for every visitor, so with the great weather we hiked up to see it first thing in the morning. Christy is suffering from injured toes and will be choosing her hikes carefully. The 1.6 mile hike was relatively flat with beautiful views in every direction. The prize at the end is seeing Landscape Arch. The span of this spectacular ribbon of rock is longer than a football field. It looks like it will fall any day now but is actually six feet thick at its narrowest spot. I walked a little farther to get a good look at Double O Arch. I also took a couple of side trails leading to Tunnel and Pine Tree Arches while Chris and Norm stayed back enjoying the landscape.
We took another hike, probably a mistake for Chris and her sore toes, from the end of the campground to Broken Arch. I know Chris loved it but that was the last of her walking for the day! Norm was sure the hike wasn’t listed as easy, it was. The arch does have a crack through the middle of it but it will probably be there for decades to come. We climbed up and down over rocks trying not to miss any of the beautiful views.
With Christy’s toes, driving seemed to be a better mode of getting from here to there so we enjoyed a scenic ride down to a picnic spot near Balanced Rock stopping at a couple of view points along the way. There are people everywhere here. They are doing a study to see about putting in a shuttle and from what we could see, it would be a wonderful addition. We shared a picnic table with a couple from South Carolina and they gave us a couple restaurants not to miss when we are in that area next year! Norm and I walked around Balanced Rock to get different views. Pour Chris isn’t one to stay back but the toes are ruling the day. We continued our drive on a dirt road through Salt Valley to Klondike Bluffs. There is a great trail to Tower Arch but it wasn’t in the books today. We will have to come back. They waited in the car listening to a great comedian on NPR and I took the first ¾ of a mile of the hike up to a couple of spectacular lookout points being very careful as I traversed the rocks making sure not to miss the cairns along the trail. It was not the time to have an accident or lose my way! Oh my, the views were worth the effort. As I came up over the ridge, I was in awe with the view to the horizon. I know my pictures won’t do it justice especially because I was looking into the sun. I put in some hiking miles today. Going up hill is getting easier. A little rocking chair time in the sun and Bar-B-Q chicken for dinner awaited us back at camp. We have taken a drive the last two nights to see the early evening glow on the rocks and watch the sunset. Pretty good sunset tonight.
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| Chris and I Holding Up Balanced Rock |
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| View as I came over the ridge at Klondike Bluffs. To my right was close to a 180 degree cirlce of red bluffs. |
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| Delicate Landscape Arch |
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| Hiking up to Landscape Arch |
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| Broken Arch |
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| HikeBack to Camp From Broken Arch |
Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Chris decided that the only way she was going to be able to walk very far with her injured toes was to get a new pair of sandals. We went into Moab and found just the thing, new Tevas with open toes. I have my hiking buddy back! After lunch Chris and I drove down to the Windows area of the park and took a loop trail that took us to three beautiful arches. Big tour buses are coming into the park bring lots of people. The trails are pretty busy. At sunset I guess it’s not unusual to see 100 people sitting up on the edges of the arches. We saw North and South Windows and then hiked over to Turret Arches. Turret is my favorite of these. We walked across the parking area for a hike up to the magnificent Double Arch. It was full of people as we walked up but luck was with us, most people headed out and we had about twenty minutes to enjoy the views with just one fellow woman hiker. When we were ready to leave a whole new hoard was on their way. Christy’s new sandals are just the ticket! We made one more stop to see what remains of Wolfe Ranch. Native Americans had traveled through this land for the last 10,000 years, a Spanish explorer came though in 1765, the “Spanish Trail” led early trappers through part of the park, and in the 1850’s settlers began adding their mark. John Wesley Wolfe came out here after the Civil War with his son and homesteaded land near Delicate Arch. In 1906 his daughter came out with her family to join him and insisted on a new house with wood floors and china ordered from the Sears Catalog. The house is still standing next to the corral but it is primitive and tiny! What a hard life but the scenery they looked at every day was something else. Miners came through looking for uranium. Unbelievably miners put uranium in bottles mixed it with water and sold it as a curative for whatever ails you! Now we have this marvelous place to enjoy and hand down for generations to come. There are so many Europeans and other foreigners visiting all the parks we have visited. With the dollar giving them a fabulous exchange rate, they are here in droves. It’s nice to share our gorgeous parks!
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| Double Arch |
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| Looking Up Through Double Arch |
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| Standing on the Cliff Edge with Delicate Arch in the Distance |
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| Walking Down Park Ave |
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| Fin on Park Ave Walk |
May 23
We woke up to dark clouds in the distance with thunder and lightning. We could see it raining miles away but we had some blue sky overhead. We decided to see if we could get in a couple of short hikes. Our timing was amazing once again. Chris and I did a short hike up to a cliff overlook of Delicate Arch Viewpoint. It would be nice to hike up to the arch another time. The viewpoint was beautiful but the arch was tiny in the distance. Our second hike was Park Ave. This is a one mile hike down a wash through the giant slabs of red rock. It is one they suggest you to have someone in your party drop you off at Park Ave. and then pick you up at Courthouse Rock. Norm was happy to do that for us. It made it an easy stroll instead of an uphill hike to get back. A couple from Holland asked us if we could take them back to their car rather than hike back. Norm made the quick jaunt and they were very appreciative. We had blue sky ahead but black clouds looking back up the wash. We took our rain jackets with us just in case but hiked in the sunshine both times. By the time we got back to the Manor for lunch we had thunder and lightning again! This time some pretty big raindrops came down for a few minutes. Those were the last two hikes on our list so we are going to settle in for the afternoon and get some reading time in. We will pack up in the morning and head to Canyonlands NP. This will be our last National Park in Utah.
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