Today, we decided to go to Canyonlands National Park, which is pretty much next door to Arches National Park. It's a very large park, with two access points over 100 miles apart. We headed for the nearby "Island in the Sky" portion of the park. Sunny and warm this morning (26C), so we loaded up on sunscreen and brought our hats.
The Island in the Sky is a giant Y-shaped plateau, and except for the plateau, the rest of the land falls away into sharp, deep canyons. Hence the name Canyonlands. So, when you drive into the park, you find yourself at the top of a plateau with spectacular views. And the views you see? The areas below are completely inaccessible by car - you can't get there from here. However, there are marked trails for Jeeps, and serious off-road vehicles (which is why Moab has so many Hummer/ATV/Jeep rentals). However, Stephen and I stayed on the paved roads and enjoyed the views from there. :-)
Shafer Canyon Overlook gives a spectacular view with a very long drop (as with everything here, no railings), and Arches National Park apparently hasn't cornered the market on rock arches: we did a short hike out to Mesa Arch, which is just on the edge of another spectacular/terrible drop. Don't fall!
Out at Grand View Point Overlook, when you look down into the canyons below, you can see another layer of canyons below that flaring out like a three-toed footprint - as if a giant raptor went stomping around down there millions of years ago. (Stephen doesn't think raptors were that big. Anyway - pic to the right! From the lookout point, we set out on a trail along the rim. Lots of steep drop-offs and scenic views. Before returning, we built another Inukshuk on the edge of the canyon.
The last hike we did at Canyonlands was Whale Rock, where, once again, we got over-eager with scaling any hill in front of us, and then we lost the cairns that mark the trail and went briefly astray. However, the cairns at Canyonlands were better than Arches, and we were back on track again. :-) No life and death decisions this time!
After Canyonlands, we headed back to Arches, as we hadn't had time to do the Landscape Arch hike, which is supposed to be the longest arch in the world. There were a LOT more people in Arches today; can't imagine how busy the Delicate Arch trail would be today (that's their busiest trail). Anyway, the trails we were doing leave from Devils Garden, and the day was fittingly hot and sunny. No clouds overhead today, and the sun just seems to bake off that red rock everywhere. Hot hot hot!
It's hard to call anything unique in Arches, when everything's unique, but still - Devils Garden is a quite striking place, where a lot of the rocks seemed to be piled together in giant upright slabs. For at least the first part of the hike, we were walking in between some of the giant slabs, and fortunately the sun was still to the side, so we were walking in shade. Eventually, though, the trail devolves into super soft sand. Lovely to sit on with a drink in your hand and an umbrella overhead, but the lack of traction makes it a little bit tiring to walk through. The sun was coming over the mesa when we got to Landscape Arch, making photos a bit blindingly difficult.
After that, I wanted to do the next two arches on the trail (the Partition Arch and the Navajo Arch), even though the signs warned that the trails were "primitive" and marked as difficult hiking.
Me: Difficult? Hah! I laugh in the face of difficult! I spit in its eye! I--
Stephen (interrupting my self-confidence spree, and pointing up at one of the rock slabs): Do we have to climb up there?
Me: No, I don't think so. That'd be crazy hard.
Stephen: There are people hiking up there.
Me: Damn...
Climbing in the heat is hard. And this ain't no weeny trail. Cause it's primitive and difficult. And, of course, I make a misstep over a crevice, and down I go -- protect the camera! -- onto my face and elbows. Ouch. That's going to leave a mark. I'm going to look like a beating victim by the time I get back home. But the camera is mostly okay!
It's not long before I'm getting winded and thirsty, what with the climbing and the falling and the super-sunshine. So, I sit down and drink water. Ask German tourists if the whole trail is this hard? No, they say, that was the worst part. Whew. We get up and go on. And yes, the remainder is much easier. We're hiking out in full sun now.
First, there's Partition Arch, overlooking some of the trail we've come up. Then we have to backtrack a ways, as the trail to the Navajo Arch is another spur off the main trail.
We're walking along a massive rock wall that has a little alcove worn away at the bottom, almost like a little sheltered walkway (if we were a tiny bit shorter). And there are little holes in the rock wall, worn out by rainwater somehow, I suppose? People have put little pebbles into the holes, and they look like row upon row of little cliff dwellers. :-)
A little further along and we reach the Navajo Arch, which is an archway into a long narrow open-roofed "room" in the middle of everything. If I get too tired to leave, I think I'm going to live in this space. (And eventually die of thirst, I guess.)
Instead, we head back down to the main trail. The heck with the Double O Arch and Dark Angel - it's hot, and we're not carrying enough water.
When we get back to the Visitor Centre, I'm busy washing the dirt off my crunched elbows. One is bruised, and the other one looks like I ran it along a sander. And - uh oh! I see where I missed a bit of sunscreen on one arm. However, Stephen fared worse than I did. He declined to put sunscreen on his legs this morning, saying that they could use a bit of colour. Hey, how's red working out for you? You like that colour? (Of course, the clumsy bruised woman probably shouldn't say anything at all.)
That's it for Arches (at least for this year). :-)
Utah has very pretty scenery. But it's also a very weird state - it seems the geography changes every twenty minutes. You go from plateaus with lots of vegetation, to scary canyons, to monolithic red slabs of rock, to hills and forest, and then into gently rolling rural scenery that could come from Manitoba or Saskatchewan.
I can see why Moab is such a tourist town, though - you could spend a week there, hiking at Arches and then exploring Canyonlands. Their outfitters organize river and jeep expeditions, and we saw a company that did Canyonlands by Night boat tours (to watch the sunset and stargaze). Would be nice.
And I have no idea how any pioneers got through that area or Utah, unless they backtracked and turned around. It is so full of obstacles - I think that just putting in roads must have been a monumental tasks. Canyonlands owes much of its few sparse roads to trails that were cut by uranium prospectors in the 1950s, but it still remains a huge park with very few roads. A horse might be the best way through, except for all the cliffs. So maybe most of the pioneers did go back and find a way around.
The Island in the Sky is a giant Y-shaped plateau, and except for the plateau, the rest of the land falls away into sharp, deep canyons. Hence the name Canyonlands. So, when you drive into the park, you find yourself at the top of a plateau with spectacular views. And the views you see? The areas below are completely inaccessible by car - you can't get there from here. However, there are marked trails for Jeeps, and serious off-road vehicles (which is why Moab has so many Hummer/ATV/Jeep rentals). However, Stephen and I stayed on the paved roads and enjoyed the views from there. :-)
Shafer Canyon Overlook gives a spectacular view with a very long drop (as with everything here, no railings), and Arches National Park apparently hasn't cornered the market on rock arches: we did a short hike out to Mesa Arch, which is just on the edge of another spectacular/terrible drop. Don't fall!
The last hike we did at Canyonlands was Whale Rock, where, once again, we got over-eager with scaling any hill in front of us, and then we lost the cairns that mark the trail and went briefly astray. However, the cairns at Canyonlands were better than Arches, and we were back on track again. :-) No life and death decisions this time!
After Canyonlands, we headed back to Arches, as we hadn't had time to do the Landscape Arch hike, which is supposed to be the longest arch in the world. There were a LOT more people in Arches today; can't imagine how busy the Delicate Arch trail would be today (that's their busiest trail). Anyway, the trails we were doing leave from Devils Garden, and the day was fittingly hot and sunny. No clouds overhead today, and the sun just seems to bake off that red rock everywhere. Hot hot hot!
It's hard to call anything unique in Arches, when everything's unique, but still - Devils Garden is a quite striking place, where a lot of the rocks seemed to be piled together in giant upright slabs. For at least the first part of the hike, we were walking in between some of the giant slabs, and fortunately the sun was still to the side, so we were walking in shade. Eventually, though, the trail devolves into super soft sand. Lovely to sit on with a drink in your hand and an umbrella overhead, but the lack of traction makes it a little bit tiring to walk through. The sun was coming over the mesa when we got to Landscape Arch, making photos a bit blindingly difficult.
After that, I wanted to do the next two arches on the trail (the Partition Arch and the Navajo Arch), even though the signs warned that the trails were "primitive" and marked as difficult hiking.
Me: Difficult? Hah! I laugh in the face of difficult! I spit in its eye! I--
Stephen (interrupting my self-confidence spree, and pointing up at one of the rock slabs): Do we have to climb up there?
Me: No, I don't think so. That'd be crazy hard.
Stephen: There are people hiking up there.
Me: Damn...
Climbing in the heat is hard. And this ain't no weeny trail. Cause it's primitive and difficult. And, of course, I make a misstep over a crevice, and down I go -- protect the camera! -- onto my face and elbows. Ouch. That's going to leave a mark. I'm going to look like a beating victim by the time I get back home. But the camera is mostly okay!
It's not long before I'm getting winded and thirsty, what with the climbing and the falling and the super-sunshine. So, I sit down and drink water. Ask German tourists if the whole trail is this hard? No, they say, that was the worst part. Whew. We get up and go on. And yes, the remainder is much easier. We're hiking out in full sun now.
First, there's Partition Arch, overlooking some of the trail we've come up. Then we have to backtrack a ways, as the trail to the Navajo Arch is another spur off the main trail.
We're walking along a massive rock wall that has a little alcove worn away at the bottom, almost like a little sheltered walkway (if we were a tiny bit shorter). And there are little holes in the rock wall, worn out by rainwater somehow, I suppose? People have put little pebbles into the holes, and they look like row upon row of little cliff dwellers. :-)
A little further along and we reach the Navajo Arch, which is an archway into a long narrow open-roofed "room" in the middle of everything. If I get too tired to leave, I think I'm going to live in this space. (And eventually die of thirst, I guess.)
Instead, we head back down to the main trail. The heck with the Double O Arch and Dark Angel - it's hot, and we're not carrying enough water.
When we get back to the Visitor Centre, I'm busy washing the dirt off my crunched elbows. One is bruised, and the other one looks like I ran it along a sander. And - uh oh! I see where I missed a bit of sunscreen on one arm. However, Stephen fared worse than I did. He declined to put sunscreen on his legs this morning, saying that they could use a bit of colour. Hey, how's red working out for you? You like that colour? (Of course, the clumsy bruised woman probably shouldn't say anything at all.)
That's it for Arches (at least for this year). :-)
Utah has very pretty scenery. But it's also a very weird state - it seems the geography changes every twenty minutes. You go from plateaus with lots of vegetation, to scary canyons, to monolithic red slabs of rock, to hills and forest, and then into gently rolling rural scenery that could come from Manitoba or Saskatchewan.
I can see why Moab is such a tourist town, though - you could spend a week there, hiking at Arches and then exploring Canyonlands. Their outfitters organize river and jeep expeditions, and we saw a company that did Canyonlands by Night boat tours (to watch the sunset and stargaze). Would be nice.
And I have no idea how any pioneers got through that area or Utah, unless they backtracked and turned around. It is so full of obstacles - I think that just putting in roads must have been a monumental tasks. Canyonlands owes much of its few sparse roads to trails that were cut by uranium prospectors in the 1950s, but it still remains a huge park with very few roads. A horse might be the best way through, except for all the cliffs. So maybe most of the pioneers did go back and find a way around.
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