So we decided to head west after Mesa Verde and here we are in Moab, Utah - home to
Arches National Park. I think we made a great choice!
Arches is a beautiful, high-desert park filled with mammoth red sandstone outcroppings in the most unusual shapes - fins, windows, towers & arches. According to the park info, they have cataloged more than 2000 arches in the park's 76,000 acres. It seems we picked a pretty good time to visit. The temps got to the high 60s to mid 70s and it was mostly bright sunshine for the two days we were here - shorts & t-shirts today!. Best of all, we got here before the crowds! This park, like many of the national parks, has a reputation for getting over crowded during peak season (which begins later in March). The park has an 18 mile loop road with many stops, and some side loops, along the way. In peak season, it's not unusual that the parking lots at the various scenic stops get filled early and pretty much stay that way. Lucky us, we had none of that! On the 9th (Thursday), we mostly drove through the park making all the stops but we still managed to get some hiking in (about 6 miles or so). Today, Friday the 10th, we drove to the Devil's Garden Trail at the very end of the loop road and hiked out to Landscape Arch and then continued on a primitive trail around the back of the cliffs. In all, we walked almost 10 miles today. Below are some of the sights from our driving & hiking. These are just a few of the pictures we took and maybe not even the best. It's going to be a real effort when we get home to try and sort these all out and put together a good album.
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| Park Avenue |
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| Balanced Rock |
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| North Window |
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| Turret Arch |
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| Pinnacles & Lasal Mtns |
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| Broken Arch |
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| Skyline Arch |
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| Pine Tree Arch |
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| Landscape Arch (longest in the park & 5th longest in world) |
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| Sandstone "Fins" In Fin Canyon |
Factoid 1: You have probably seen at least some of this area on TV and in the movies. There have been literally 100s of movies made in and around Arches & Canyonland. To name just a few:
Rio Grande &
The Comancheros (John Wayne),
The Greatest Story Ever Told,
Thelma & Louise,
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and
The Hulk.
Factoid 2:
In the 1950s Moab became the so-called "Uranium Capital of the World" after geologist Charles Steen found a rich deposit of uranium ore south of the city. This discovery coincided with the advent of the era of nuclear weapons and nuclear power in the United States, and Moab's boom years began. There are still signs, etc. that refer to Moab as "Uranium City"!
Tomorrow, Saturday the 11th, we're heading over to the "Island in the Sky" district of
Canyonlands National Park (it's about an hour drive from Moab). Canyonlands is divided into three separate "districts" and there are no roads connecting one district to another even though it is one HUGE park (337,598 acres!). Much of the park, especially the Maze and the Needles districts are very primitive and can only be explored on foot, by boat, or off-road vehicle. In fact, over 80% of the park is considered untouched wilderness. Look for an update here in a few days.
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| Mesa Arch |
After Canyonlands, it looks like we're heading north to Salt Lake City for a day or two then (according to our current thinking), we're going to head south to see Bryce Canyon National Park and then Zion National Park, both in Utah. After that it's anybody's guess where we'll head next.
Well, that's all for now! ..... Dan
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