"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind"
Seneca
Its hard to believe its already been four days since I dropped Shriver off at the airport, the trip is really going fast now. I last left you at the edge of Dead Horse Point. The experience of traveling alone has made this a whole new adventure that I am thoroughly enjoying. There is only one thing that will prevent me from continuing on and that's hunger. The morning of Day 30, having had to eat a dinner of dried apricots, almonds and beef jerky the night before, my stomach was the captain. The nearest town to Canyonlands is Moab and since that was in the direction of Arches, I headed there first.
The town of Moab sits about 6 miles south of Arches and serves as the main hub for outdoor activities in the area. Along its main street are numerous outfitters that will whisk you away on 4 wheelers across the slick rock desert, on a raft to try your luck on the Green and Colorado River or take you up in the air for a view of the canyons and arches. The general area is a mecca for mountain bikers with world class challenging tracks. In the mix of things are eclectic restaurants and bars with names like Love Muffin, Wake and Bake Care, and even one named Eklecticafe. I chose the last for a hearty breakfast of eggs and biscuits with gravy. Satisfied I headed out into the heat for some arch viewing.
The first stop was Corona Arch which is actually not in Arches National Park. This hike was recommended to me by the two ladies at Squatters in Salt Lake City. I filled up the gas tank and headed down a road along the Green River and after about 10 miles came to the trail head. The hike was a relatively easy hike by elevation and length standards, 3 miles round trip with 350 feet of climbing. Of course it would be easy if it were anywhere but the desert, the heat is brutal here and it is recommended you carry at least 2 liters of water with you at all time. It ended up being a fun hike along the slick rock, with sections requiring cables and ladders to get to higher elevations. There was a storm brewing in the distance, which in addition to ruining my camera would make the hike back much harder as when slick rock gets wet it gets slick, go figure. I arrived at the arch. This arch is a fairly famous place to rope swing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B36Lr0Unp4) standing a 100 ft above the trail and 140 ft wide. There were two people on top of it with ropes so I was hoping I'd get to see someone swing but they never did and the storm was approaching. I hurried back and got to the car just in time.
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| Corona Arch |
The next stop was Arches National Park. Arches is a relatively small park at 79,000 acres and is home to the largest number of sand stone arches in the world, with over 2000. The most famous, Delicate Arch, is found on the majority of Utah drivers' license plates. The park was not overly crowded, which was good because it is mainly a driving park with roads going right up to some of the arches. The park is more than arches though, it has large sand stone monoliths sculpted over time by rain and wind. If it were not for the bushes and scattered trees you could easily have told me I had made a wrong turn and ended up on Mars. This place is not Earth.
My campsite was at the northern most point of the park next to the Devils Garden trail, so I decided to spend this afternoon hiking to Delicate Arch. There are two options to getting to the arch, a drive to a view point or a 3 mile hike that takes you directly to the arch. I chose the latter. It was about 3 in the afternoon at this point and the sun was nice and high over head beating down the entire hike without any shade. I made it up quickly and rested with an awesome view of the arch with the mountains and canyons in the background. I made it back to the car with some water to spare and moved on. After a few more stops, including Balancing Rock, I headed to my campsite.
The campground was one of the most unique I had been to. Each site was tucked up against giant slick rock boulders providing lots of exploration and rock scrambling. I was not going to go without a heated dinner so my first priority was dinner, but I got distracted reading a book I had picked up in town called the Last Season, the story of an elite search and rescue ranger who himself went missing in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon wilderness. By the time I was ready to cook, a small storm had made its way to the campground (surprise). Fortunately, cooking already cooked rice and salmon was easy and I had a nice dinner at the back of my car with a tarp rigged around me to block the sideways blowing rain. I went to bed early for a planned sunrise hike in the Devils Garden.
Waking up prior to sunset is very difficult, because this for some unknown reason is the easiest time to sleep. I managed to fend off the urge to hit the snooze button and got up at 5:45, 30 minutes before sunrise. I packed up camp, ate two granola bars and an apple and headed to the trailhead. When I hit the trail I only had 5 minutes before sunrise and had a quarter mile to get to the first arch. I power walked to it and managed to get a few awesome shots of the sun rising over the canyons and lighting up Pine Arch. After some pictures, it was time to move on and check out the other 8 arches along the 6 mile round trip hike. The most impressive was Landscape Arch, a nearly 300 ft long arch that is at its narrowest section only six feet of rock wide. In 1991 a giant 73 foot slab of rock fell from the arches and was caught on film by a tourist, a reminder that these structures are all bet temporary. After this section, the trail became semi-primitive. It led up fins, buttes and through open sections with only cairns to lead the way. This became problematic for me as my self-diagnosed ADD was in full swing and I was not paying much attention to the cairns. I got lost, following a sandy path along the slick rock. I was first on the trail so I had no one to follow, there was a couple not too far behind me initially so when I realized I had not seen them in a while, it was time to retrace my steps. On the way I happened upon a snake that based on the shape of his head and my cub scout training I determined to it to be nonvenomous. However, sharks and bears aren't poisonous either, and we keep our distance from them (they all still bite) so I waited a few minutes and threw a rock near it to get it to move (crisis averted).
This is the problem with using piles of rocks as trail guides in an area known for its rocks. Fortunately I was able to retrace my steps and only add about half a mile to my hike. During my mix up a large group of French tourists had caught up to me and asked for directions (isn't it ironic, don't you think?). Anyway, now an I expert I lead them in the right direction, I think. A little side note here, since as long as I can remember, its been engrained into me that Americans are awful tourists. Well if we are awful, what does that make the French. This group of about seven (all adults) were loud the whole hike and walked over fragile plants. I could hear them a mile away and when they got to an arch, they'd yell words like "stupid" to hear it echo. Additional side note, arches don't echo. Anyway, back to my hike. The hike ended at a collection of spires and then it was time to turn around. My trip back made me me happy I had woken up so early, as this is a very popular hike. The last family I passed before getting to my car was in the middle of a breakdown, mom was crying, kids looked cranky and dad didn't seem to care. It's nice being alone sometimes.
Afterwards, I hit up Moab stopping at the Wake and Bake for lunch and then the Moab Brewery for dinner. As always I sat at the bar and chatted with fellow tourists and townies. One particular guy worked in film production and told me about the number of movies made in Moab, some of my favorites. The list included Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Thelma and Louise, City Slickers 2, Con-Air, Mission Impossible 2 to name a few. After dinner and some beers, it was off to bed to get ready for the next part of the trip to Colorado. Utah was awesome though, a state with a diverse landscape and super nice people. The possibilities for adventure are endless in this state.
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| Pine Arch |
Stats:
Miles: 7510
States: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN,
NC, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, ID, MT, WY
Favorite State: Utah
National Parks: 16
Miles Hiked: 90
Bottles of Water Drank: 16
Urine Output: 300 ml (completely made up statistic, but it was very low)
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