Days 30 and 31 - Arches and Moab

"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. 

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.  

 

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)

Days 28 and 29 - Salt Lake City and Canyonlands

“and hence there is no greater joy than to 

have an endlessly changing horizon" 

Chris McCandless

The 5^th leg of the trip has begun.  I remember looking at my list of stops and thinking it would be forever before I got to these final two weeks.  Like any vacation, the beginning feels like forever and then when you get to the last part of it, it seems like it went by too quickly.  Its been fun sharing this with some the most important people in my life, but now it is time to go forward alone.

Day 28 started off a little rough in Jackson, we may have had a few too many drinks.  The silence of two people in a car with hangovers, was good preparation for the rest of my trip.  A stop at a roadside coffee shop fixed our misery and we made excellent driving time to Salt Lake City.  The first view of the city was reminiscent of Las Vegas; a city cloaked in a desert haze surrounded by mountains.  I dropped Shriver off, and immediately had a feeling of dread.  Home seemed very far away, but that feeling was instantly cured with a stop to the Red Iguana, the locals’ favorite Mexican restaurant.  It was featured on Diners, Drives and Dives and it lived up to the hype (seriously get the TVfoodmaps app; it’s free).  With my belly full I headed to the Sheraton to crash.  It was already mid-afternoon so I opted for a nap in my king-sized bed and then later went for a stroll around town.  Salt Lake is a beautiful city, once the haze dissipates.  It’s clean and everyone seems to enjoy walking outside.  The sunset behind was the skyline was great.  I had a late dinner at Squatters Brew Pub, chatted with two ladies in town for the Outdoor Retailers Conference at the bar and then called it a night.

Salt Lake City

The next day, I made a 4 hour drive to the Southeast corner of Utah, where Arches, Canyonlands and Moab are located.  I’ll be here for 3 days.  For the first day, I started with Canyonlands.  As I made my way towards the parks, the landscape changed from tree-covered mountains to red and orange mesas with large plateaus covered in small bushes.  Before getting to the park, I made the mistake of not braking hard enough before passing a cop.  Fortunately, Utah cops are much nicer than Virginia and when he saw all my bumper stickers and I told him about my road trip he let me go with a warning.  I continued along, slower, and eventually made it to the park early in the afternoon.  The first thing I noticed was that there were no crowds or lines of traffic.  I was already very happy.

Island in the Sky

The park has three main sections; all are accessible from opposite corners with no direct way to the others.  Since I did not have time to see everything, I stuck to the northern section along the top of the canyon for the most expansive views.  This area is the spot where two canyons created by the Green and Colorado rivers meet up.  The landscape here is different than Grand Canyon or Zion, with random rock formations, mesas, buttes and spires.  Though, color scheme is similar to Zion with pinks, oranges, and whites.  It was hot so I decided to stick to short hikes and then drive to the various overlooks.

The first hike was to Mesa Arch.  I had seen this in the Peter Lik art gallery in Las Vegas, and was pretty excited to it up close.  His picture is absolutely amazing, with a shot of the red arch lit by the sunrise and the snowcapped La Sals mountains in the distant.  I was unable to recreate the shot do to the time of day, season and the four kids climbing on it .  The next stop was the Upheavel Dome, a 2 mile round trip hike around.  Upheavel Dome is a mysterious crater that geologists still cannot agree on how it was formed.  The hike was very different than previous hikes as it was over slick rock, with now one path, only cairns (piles of rocks) to lead the way.  I pictured myself getting lost out here very easily, but I managed to stick to the trail.

Mesa Arch

After a bit more driving around, I left the park and drove a few miles back towards Dead Horse Point State Park.  Shriver, who had been here a few years ago, recommended this place for camping.  The campsite and park sit at the edge of a mesa overlooking the Colorado River and it’s the canyon, 2000 feet below. I set up my site, which had the best view one could as for when camping and then waited for a great light show as the sun set, and more stars than I had ever seen made there way out.  I went to bed content and woke up early for another show as the sun rose lighting up the canyon below.

Sunset at Dead Horse Point

Traveling alone is certainly a different experience.  You see something fantastic, smile, and then move on to the next without getting to talk about it.  It’s very quiet in the car, well that is when I’m not singing and pretending I am Simon Cowell insulting my own singing.  There is to division of labor at camp.  There are some benefits though.   Picking out a place to eat takes no discussion, and there is no one to judge me when I pick Wendys and order both a Baconator and spicy chicken nuggets (and don’t judge me now).  You don’t have to remember whose turn it is to pay for gas.  Speaking of gas, you don’t have to pretend that smell is something outside the car, like the sulfur from a geyser.  It’s only been two days alone, so we’ll see how the rest of Utah goes.  Next up, Moab and Arches.

Stats:

Miles Driven: 7427

States: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, NC, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, ID, MT, WY

National Parks: 15

Miles Hiked: 75

Times Pulled Over: 2

Times I’ve Actually Yelled at Siri for bad directions: 18

Trail to Upheavel Dome

Days 26 and 27 - Grand Teton NP

“Celebrate we will, because life is short but sweet for certain”

Two Step by Dave Matthews Band

Grand Teton was supposed to be a simple stop on the way down to Salt Lake City, but quickly shot up the list to my favorite park of the entire trip.  It was a rough road getting here though.  We woke up early in Yellowstone and planned to get to Grand Teton only 45 miles south by midmorning so that we could get a hike in and check out most of the park.  Compared to Yellowstone it’s a much smaller park, about 300,000 acres (Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres), encompassing a 40 mile stretch of the Teton Mountain range.  The parks road sits the east of the range offering spectacular views of the mountains which have peaks over 12,000 feet.

Again the start of our day was rocky (no pun intended) as we hit numerous areas of traffic and road construction on our way to the park.  We did not even get to the park until 1 and the campground board at the entrance showed that the best campgrounds were full.  The day itself was sunny so we were hopeful for a great day.  The first site of the range was fantastic.  The mountains were a result of earth being thrust upward through plate movements and earthquakes and then carved by glaciers.  They are ragged in shape but are made more impressive by the lack of foothills.  They just go straight up from the ground, over 6000 feet above the valley below.  The first campground we found was in an awful location, so we decided to see if maybe the signs were wrong and the better campgrounds had openings.  Since I get to write this I will leave out my angry, frustrated moments finding a site, but in the end it all worked out and we found a site at a campground on Jackson Lake overlooking the mountains.  Then in rained.

The afternoon shower ended quickly, but there were more clouds around so we decided to get a quick hike in.  We picked up some trail maps at the visitor center and headed for a 4 mile loop hike to an alpine lake at the base of the mountains.  It was sunny when we started and was a great relaxing hike through the meadows, eventually leading to the lake.  By the time we hit the lake the sky was completely gray, we relaxed for a little but when the thunder started we headed back to the car.  Now this storms-at-the-end-of-hikes bit may seem like redundant story telling, but if I have to suffer so do you.

Thunder at this point has become part of the hikes and I was starting to find it relaxing.  The winds and rain can be cooling after a hot hike.  As I had finally come to terms with this style of hiking, Shriver pointed out that the mountains behind us were almost completely out of view as a wall of rain headed towards us.  This was not going to be a nice storm.  We had about a mile left to go.  In my head I had visions of disaster movies where the protagonist is able to outrun a tornado or erupting volcano.  I could do it too.  Shriver didn’t seem to mind so he continued to walk.  I ran, and as he disappeared behind me I became hopeful I’d outrun it.  I couldn’t.  The storm hit hard, much harder than rain.  It wasn’t until the path filled up with pea-sized balls of ice that I realized it was hail.  It hailed for the whole run back to the car.  The final section took me away from the protection of the trees and into an open field with lightning strikes seeming to be just overhead.  I survived and waited about 10 minutes for Shriver to emerge alive.

Completely drained from the run and tired of rain, all I wanted was some warm clothes, food and a bed.  We returned to our wet campsite, attempted to cook dinner, got hit by more rain and then the clouds went away.  Shriver convinced me to take a walk down to the lake for sunset.  We had a short walk through the woods to the stony beach.  The sun setting over the Tetons is now in a special memory place with the first views of Crater Lake and Grand Canyon, the night sky on my private island in Belize and my campsite on the beach in Washington.  We returned to camp finished dinner and then went back to the lake for a few of the stars and a lightning storm far in the distant.  Each bolt lit up the Tetons.

The next day we got up early with plans to do one last epic hike before Shriver parted.  This time there were no clouds and only a chance of thunderstorms around 2 PM.  That gave us over 5 hours to hike.  We chose a popular hike that starts with a boat ride across Jenny Lake to Cascade Canyon, a canyon between the tallest two peaks of the range.  It started off as an easy out and back hike, with a gradual elevation change of 2000 ft over 7 miles, for a total of 14.4 miles.  The path goes through pine forests along a river with rapids and multiple waterfalls, with a final 2-mile strenuous section through a meadow up to Solitude Lake.  It was not the toughest hike of the trip, but easily my favorite.  The views were endless. 

We stopped for some food after the hike and then continued south to Jackson, WY for a night out to celebrate the end of a great two weeks weeks.  The night started with a stop at the Snake River Brew Pub and then we happened upon a free Hold Steady concert (courtesy of Budlight).  It was the perfect end to the best day of the trip yet.  Grand Teton was exactly what I need to be rejuvenated for the final 2 legs of the trip.  I will definitely come back here more than once.  It’s been a fun two weeks with Shriver, we hiked a ton, saw a ton, and tried a lot of local beers.  Today we head to Salt Lake City where I’ll drop him off and spend the next 10 days alone on the road.  The trip continues to exceed expectations.  Next stop is a return to Utah for Salt Lake City, Canyonlands, Moab and Arches and then Colorado for Rocky Mountains and Denver.

Stats:

Miles Driven: 6914

States: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, NC, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, ID, MT, WY

National Parks: 14

Miles Hiked: 73

Number of marmot attacks: 1

Blog Views: 3230

Day 25 - Yellowstone: Part 2

“Look deep into nature and then you will

understand everything better”

Albert Einstein

I probably should have waited to see how the second day in Yellowstone went before promising an equally exciting part 2.  Unfortunately mother nature thwarted any attempts at hiking or exploring the park beyond its main tourist attractions.  Fortunately these attractions are pretty spectacular even if they require no work to see.

The rain continued the night before until 11, the car was warm but not a good place to sleep as I learned from my stay in Sequoia. At night the temperature drops to the 30s.  Thanks to my sleeping bag I stayed warm but the morning was tough.  With less than an hour of sunlight it was still cold and my camp shower routine, which involves dumping water from my Nalgene bottle onto my head and face, was better than anything a cup of coffee could to do wake me up.  Our plan for the day was to start early and beat the crowds to Old Faithful.

Old Faithful is arguably the most recognizable national park attraction and because of that gets an average of 30,000 visitors a day.  It reliably spews up to 8,400 gallons of water per eruption over a 1 minute period, reaching heights up to 180 feet.  My Secrets of the National Park Guidebook suggested getting there before 10:00.  Our campground was an hour north, and to give us enough time we had to wake up and leave by 8. Miraculously we stuck to our plan, eating yogurt and bananas on the car ride down.  On the way we stopped at the Lower Basin, a collection of pools and geysers.  We lucked out and happened upon that had just started to go off, spewing steam a good 20 feet into the air.  This was cool, but I found the bubbling pools of perfectly clear water with red yellow and green colored floors due to bacteria.  As we were heading out the first bus appeared, unloading a mob of Chinese tourists.

I have not talked much about this yet, but the National Parks seem to be more frequented by foreigners than by US citizens.  The sites are world famous and bring people from the far reaches to see them.  It’s a privilege to have these in our backyard, only a 3000 mile drive away, no passport needed.  Anyway, back to the main attraction.  We left the lower basin and made our way to Old Faithful.  Old Faithful is not the biggest geyser in the park but as its name suggests it reliably goes off every 90 minutes plus or minus 10 minutes.  I did not pay enough attention to the Visitor Center movie to tell you many facts about it, and without any reliable Internet, Wikipedia is out.  We got to the Old Faithful with 20 minutes to spare and stood amongst the 100s of visitors lined up around it.  A storm in the distance provided an awesome backdrop contrasting the white steam with a black sky with occasional streaks of lightning.  Fortunately the storm kept its distance and blue skies opened up just in time to see it go off.  I was worried this might be another Carlsbad bat fly type of event, but it was worth the wait.  After watching it go off we did a short 3 mile loop hike around the area to see more multicolored pools and geysers.

After doing our American duty and seeing Old Faithful we headed east towards Yellowstone Lake.  No lake can match Crater Lake’s beauty, so to me this was just another lake.  We stopped at one of the overlooks and had the road trip special, PB&Js and Doritos (not a sponsor).  After lunch we planned to do the hike to the peak of Mt Washburn, one of the most prominent peaks in the park.  This time we checked the weather report prior to planning our hike, and it gave us exactly 3 hours to hike this before the next storm would hit.  Well, on the drive up, our good friend Mr. Bison and company decided to show off for all the visitors and create a stand still in the road.  Most of the time when animals are sited, people drive by slowly, that is only if the animals stay off the roads.  With over a hundred bison grazing in the meadows on either side it was inevitable some would cross the road and hang out.    

The delay was long enough for the rain to come and with thunder in the distance and the majority of the Washburn hike in the open we called it quits for the day.   We put up with another storm, but as a peace offering we got a nice rainbow over the campsite and a clear night with all the stars on display.  Though we did not get as much out of Yellowstone, we were able to see a little bit of everything.  I’ve been to 13 parks this trip and 4 others prior to this trip and I must say there are few parks that you could spend an entire week and see something different every day.  The park, sitting 100 miles above a giant hot pocket in the earth’s mantle, provides the stage for some pretty amazing sites.  It’s too bad that one day it’ll all be destroyed in an instant by a single volcanic eruption.  We didn't plan to wait around for that and headed south to Grand Teton National Park.

What does it all mean?

Stats:

Miles Driven: 6717

States: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, NC, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, ID, MT, WY

National Parks: 13

Miles Hiked: 55

Animals Sited: Bison (107), Elk (7), Moose (1) Coyote (1)

Number of Tourists seen: too many

PS. Yellowstone really likes to send home the message about its dangerous side, here's another warning, this time about geysers.