Arches and Canyonlands

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Over Memorial Day weekend, Jessi, Tiffany and I drove down to Moab for a quick camping and sightseeing trip. Tiffany hadn't been down that way in a long time, so I was especially excited to scoop her up and get her the hell away from Provo for a couple days to glory in the beauty of southwestern Utah together. We left early in the morning on Saturday and made it to Moab by 9 am. I can't even count how many times I've been to this place, but I'm in awe of it every time I see those endless sheer cliff walls of red.

We tried to find a camping spot to dump our stuff, but with it being so early in the morning, people were either still asleep or were enjoying their breakfasts in every available dedicated site. I don't believe in ever having to pay to sleep on the ground outside... I think $12 a night is a racket, but those sites with their fire rings, picnic tables and 20'x20' Colorado River-front plots are certainly attractive. Some guy shouted at me as we trundled by in my little passenger car over gravely roads in the campgrounds. His battery was dead, so we stopped and jumped his huge v8 truck with my little four cylinder. That was kind of magical. After that we were sick of wasting time, so we roared on up to Arches.

I have NEVER seen Arches National Park so packed. Normally the parking lot at Delicate Arch is half-empty, but on the day we went you had to drive 1/4 mile up the road and park on the side in the grass. The place was choked with cars and people. It makes me really happy to see so many folks out and eager to hike one of the more "difficult" hikes in the park. It's really not that tough or that far of a hike.. maybe 2.5 miles one way, with a steep section on slickrock during which I overheard the person behind me whining that "God is killing me". Haha.

So we got to the arch and hung out there with the couple hundreds of other people, just enjoying the view and the breeze and the hilarity of the group of men perched on the rocks like vultures as they whistled, cat-called, and shouted at each person or group that went under the arch to have their picture taken. One thing I love about national parks is how many different languages you can hear as you walk on the trails. The French couple behind us were laughing so hard at the antics of this group of men :)

Ascending to the alien spacecraft just over the hill:

As close to the arch as we felt like getting:

We also saw Sand Dune arch -- a very cool, sandy retreat tucked in a bit of canyon away from the sun. There were lots of little kids making sand castles and playing with dump trucks in here:

Another arch, with Tiffy:

This one just looks cool with the guy for scale:

At Double Arch:

One

Two

Three

We saw a few other arches and rock windows and called it good. Afterwards, we drove to the Mill Canyon turn-off and set up camp on a hill next to this dry, sandy wash where Jessi and I have camped before (for frrrrreeeee). It's one of the best-kept secrets of this place. I mean, sure, the ATV people roar through there occasionally, but it's generally a quiet, easily accessible place where you can pitch your tent and have a fire and not be bothered by any officials seeking permits. Incidentally, it's very very close to one of the quarries I've worked at in the past and it's also on the road to the bike trail that Jessi and I got lost in where we had to spend the night under the stars. Place is loaded with memories.

We had just started to roast hot dogs when suddenly our neighbors started walking halfway between their camp across the wash and ours. They were exclaiming something and I turned in time to see that they were looking at two streams of frothy, muddy water creeping out of nowhere into the wash. It had been raining in the vicinity, though nowhere near us, and finally all that water had made it to where we were as a small flash flood. Suddenly we had a river cutting our camp off from theirs. I had parked my car with one wheel right on the very edge of the wash-lip without thinking about it, on the other side of our new river, and was very worried that it was about to be carried away in the water. Ran across already knee-high water, and moved it to higher ground. I've never seen an ephemeral stream in action before, so it was really exciting, and for the rest of the evening we got to listen to the lovely sound of running water in what would normally have been a very dry place.

There was heavy ran all night.

Morning came, we packed up camp and headed to Canyonlands National Park. What a raw, gasp-inducing place! Hiked the first 2 or 3 miles of the Lathrop trail down to a stunning view of the canyon. The three of us were the only ones there and we shouted out into space, listening to the 8 or 9 echoes that followed, bouncing from the canyon walls on the left to the walls on the right. Jessi especially liked to shout LATHROP! hahaha. That still cracks me up. It's a place I'll never forget -- you could spend hours there gazing and musing.

Here is Mesa Arch, famous symbol of Canyonlands:

I really wanted to stand on an arch at SOME point on this trip, and this was that chance. Tiffany, my fellow risk-taker, joined me on top too, although Jessi opted to stay away from the possibility of a thousand-foot fall. The view and solitude from the Lathrop trail was better, but we all agree that this arch frames the canyons beautifully.

Another precarious picture.. sorry Mom:

The clouds rolled in right as we were leaving: