Arches National Park

During our 2007 road trip to Moab, Hans and I spent a lot of time in Arches National Park. From the moment we entered the park I fell in love with its unique landscapes, colors and textures and knew there was no question, I must return someday. Eight years later, now retired (YAY!) and living on the road (double YAY!) we are back.

We decided to repeat hike the longest (and best) trail in the park: the Devil's Garden/Primitive Trail loop. It's a little over seven miles and took us down into and on top of the sandstone fins and among several arches. Starting out early in the morning the Primitive half of the loop was devoid of people, our return through Devil's Garden was just the opposite. Oddly, when we visited in late April 2007 we saw only a handful of people on the entire loop!

First a few photos from the road to Devil's Garden...

You never know what you'll see when you look through an arch!

I love to imagine the eons of time these colorful layers of stone represent.

Uh oh! This wall has been compromised!

And now we'll take a hike along the Primitive side of Devil's Garden...

Submarine!

Easter Island?

Top heavy!

The trail heads into these sandstone fins.

It's a glorious day and no other people in sight yet!

Hans is on the trail, there are several places where we must scale the fins.

The cairn marks the trail...

We hike up a few fins to check out the views off the trail.
Looks like clay pots atop this one!

Peering into the abyss!

Private Arch

This is the point where we met up with the main Devil's Garden trail.
Though you can't see them, there are at least 20 people standing near Double O Arches

The Primitive Trail took us through these opposing rows of fins.

We're walking on a white fin.

There are two arches here at Partition Arch, see the guy beyond Hans; he is in the second opening.

It's the narrow sections with obstacles that cause bottlenecks.
Not our favorite kind of hiking...fortunately this was an extreme example, not constant!

On our second visit to Arches we hiked the Sand Dune/Broken/Tapestry Arch Loop as a prelude to a trip into the Fiery Furnace.

Sand Dune Arch

Broken Arch

Tapestry Arch in shadow.

Tapestry Arch

The Fiery Furnace is a natural labyrinth among sandstone walls and access is limited to 100 persons per day. There are three options for entering the Fiery Furnace: take a ranger led hike for $16, obtain a personal permit for $6, or take a tour with a private company for $89 (at least one company charges this rate).

Being low budget travelers who like to travel at their own pace, we chose the personal permit. We had to watch a short video detailing the rules for Fiery Furnace with a brief quiz afterwards by the ranger before we were issued the coveted permits. Basically you can only walk on slick rock or in washes to preserve this delicate environment.

There are many dead ends in the labyrinth so steps are retraced often and it can be easy to get disoriented. There are no trails or markers of any kind so it's important to carefully observe your surroundings so you can find your way out.

We were told not to follow groups, that we should respect each others space...but we think the main reason is that some people are paying a lot of money for their tour so it's not fair to just tag along if you haven't paid for the talk!

Towering sandstone provides welcome shade...this is a great place to explore on a warm day!

Fiery Furnace from across the valley, it's about a square mile of sandstone fun!

Arches just may be my favorite National Park so far. I'd love to visit late winter/early spring to avoid the crowds; the only way to experience solitude right now is to arrive very early in the day.

More Moab coming up...!

A Stellar Autumn Day in the La Sals

Moab, UT is one of those places with so much to do that our measly little 10 day stay will barely be enough to scratch the surface...we could easily spend a month or more here! With so many fantastic places to explore I'm already behind in posting, so I better get down to business.

First things first, in my last post I mentioned that our trucks "check engine" light came on. We were fortunate that the 200 miles we drove with it on ended up clearing the system. According to the dealer the engine needs four 50 mile cycles with no additional errors to clear any issue...YAY!

Moab has turned out to be a social stop for us so far. Our first evening we met up with the Red Rocks Gang who happened to be boondocking quite a ways south of Moab but needed to take care of business in town so we all rendezvoused at Moab Brewery. It's a Utah brewery so even though the beer didn't necessarily meet our high standards (we've all turned in to beer snobs!), the company more than made up for it!

Debbie, Bobbie, Mark, Suzanne, Lisa, Hans, Gayle, and Jim.
Surprisingly the only folks we have hiked with at this table are Mark and Bobbie...we must remedy that some day!

We also had the great pleasure of meeting up with Gay and Joe during their last few days at Portal RV Resort. We've been reading Gay's blog, Good Times Rollin', for ages and we made good use of our brief overlap, getting to know each other over dinners at each others homes. They are a wonderful couple full of good information about Moab having spent many months here and Jeeping all over the place. Silly me, I failed to get any photos, but we're looking forward to hooking up with them again in San Diego later this year.

Hans and I visited Moab back in 2007 on a 10 day road trip and we always knew we'd return, it's an outdoor enthusiasts red rock sandstone paradise. We've already visited Arches National Park twice since we arrived, but I admit I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed by the sensory overload that is Arches so instead I'll start my Moab posts with our foray into the local mountains to beat the heat and the crowds brought on by the Utah Education Association four-day school holiday.

The La Sal Mountains lie south east of Moab and rise to a high point of 12,721 feet, offering an easy access respite from the heat that blankets the valley below. After two days of hiking in 80+ degrees, we were ready for a break and an opportunity to see the last of the fall colors, the Squaw Springs Trail fit the bill.

Though most of the aspens had lost their leaves. small patches of yellow caught the eye as we walked.

Crisp blue skies provided lovely contrast to the brilliant white aspen.

Much of the trail took us through groves of gambel oak in lovely shades of yellow and orange.

In the distance we could see the dramatic canyons west of Moab.

Swaths of silvery leafless aspen and dark green conifers were dotted with the last yellow aspen leaves.

The landscape reminded me of a tapestry.

Looking back at the La Sals as we drove back to Moab. 

But the fun wasn't over yet, all the cows we'd seen on the drive up La Sal Pass Road were being moved to lower elevation grazing lands on our drive back down the mountain. Four cowpokes and three dogs herded several hundred cows along the road. We stopped for a while and watched the show as they completely blocked the way, then zig zagged our way through them once there was a bit of room to maneuver. A fitting end to our lovely day in the mountains!