Parks 5 - Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

It's kind of amazing that I've spent 5 posts talking about the vacation this year.  Or maybe not amazing when you consider I could probably spend 5 posts talking about each of these National Parks.  At any rate, this post should tie up the trip.

Probably one of the most well-known arches found in Arches National Park is the one in the first picture in this post.  This is Delicate Arch, and I can tell you it's only "delicate' from a distance.  This is a big formation.  Yup, that's me standing under it. The hike up to it is not long, so we often do the hike the morning we're leaving to go to Colorado.  We still get up well before sun up, drive out to it and leave on the trail before the sun rises.  Usually that's because we're leaving after we get back down, but also there's a massive, steep section of slickrock that's a serious climb going in and better done without the sun beating down on it.   This year we weren't leaving but we had other plans for later so we did it early anyway.

This year we ran into a new problem on this hike - mosquitoes!!!  The damn little bugs were THICK out there.  So thick in fact that they essentially chased us up the trail.  It's not that they didn't allow us to stop for breaks, although they didn't.  We couldn't even slow down and did the hike much faster than usual.  And reaching the top wasn't an escape from the damn things.  Everyone up there was slapping and swinging at them.  Perhaps later in the day with the sun well up they wouldn't have been such a problem, but then I've never had a problem with them before in the  early morning.

We didn't stay long on the hike. 

The second picture is the other arch that Arches is probably most famous for, Landscape Arch.  This one is also on the hike out to Dark Angel but I had room for the picture here.  The arch itself is fenced off because the erosion under the arch itself got bad, but honetly, it's such a long arch that any closer and it's hard to take a picture of.

That afternoon we drove over to Canyonlands National Park.   I've never stayed in Canyonlands.  It's more primitive than the other National Parks in Utah - less developed.  It has some amazing vistas though and is worth going to see, but was something of a disappointment this year because the haze was so bad.  The amount of junk in the air from the Colorado and Utah fires got worse as we moved east across Utah, and it was most noticeable in Arches and especially this day in Canyonlands.   You can see that in these last tow pictures.

These pictures are from the formation that is one of the most famous from Canyonlands, Mesa Arch.  I love this Arch because of the changing perspective you get of the structures in the background distance from it.  So the first picture shows the Arch from a distance up the trail and you can see what look like large formations behind it in the distance.  The next picture is those same formations but with the picture taken through the arch when you're standing at the arch.  Amazing, huh?  They go from huge behind the arch to tiny in the distance.  I just love perspective.

So that was our vacation.  We did some more minor shopping this afternoon and then left the next morning for my sister's place in Colorado.  Overall it was a fabulous trip, and if you've never been to any of the National Parks in Utah, I recommend you remedy that lack.  You will not regret it.

Parks 4 - Arches National Park

I was originally only going to do four posts about the vacation and the parks and finish them up with this post about Arches and Canyonlands, but once again I have more pictures than I can comfortably fit into one post.  So I decided to do Arches in this post and then a combined Arches/Canyonlands post next time.  That lets me use more pictures.  And really Arches has so many unique rock formations that it needs a couple of posts to display all the cool pictures.  All the National Parks in Utah do, now that I think about it.

This picture is of one of my favorite formations in the park.  It's called Dark Angel, and I don't know what it is about it that attracts me, but I just love this hunk of rock.  It juts up out of its relatively level surroundings and seems to be Lord of all it surveys.  I will be seriously sad the day it comes tumbling down, but then maybe I  won't  still be around when that happens.  And lest you think this is a minor piece of rock, this next picture is me standing at it's base.  Yes, squint a little and you can see me there at the base to the left.  This is a frigging huge chunk of rock.

Anyway, we arrived in Moab on Saturday and unlike our usual luck, we couldn't check into a hotel early.  Usually we get lucky enough to be able to check in early, but maybe because it was so crowded everywhere this year, we couldn't check in until almost 3:00 pm.  So we went into Moab dirty (before taking showers) and began the marathon shopping.  I LOVE shopping in Moab.  Some of my favorite tourist shops and jewelry places are in Moab.  We shopped for multiple hours then ate at the Moab Brewery.  Also one of my favorite places, because I like microbrewery beer, especially the Scorpion Pale Ale that they brew here.  Then we finally went back to the hotel and took long, blasting showers and became slugs for the rest of the evening.

Sunday morning we got up about 5:15 am and drove to Devil's Garden to hike out to the Dark Angel.  We began the hike before sunup and actually stopped on the trail to watch the sun come up.  The sky was really gorgeous, what with more clouds than usual and more haze than usual.   Like Angel's Landing, the hike out to Dark Angel and back is another favorite of mine.  It runs across and between the rock "fins" and it's not incredibly strenuous, although much of it is considered "primitive" hiking.  I guess because in areas the trail is less well laid out than your usual National Park trail.  It's fun though.  On the way out to the Dark Angel you come to the Double O Arch, which is two arches, one above the other one.  That's me standing in the lower arch. 

We start this hike as early as we do because by the time you're coming out, it's HOT and there's very little shade on the last part of the hike coming out.  By the time we get back to the car, we're incredibly ready for the iced down blue Gatorade and the air-conditioned car.  Then you have a 12 mile drive back to Maob.  We also stopped at the Visitor's Center near the entrance.  The Arches Visitor's Center is way cool.  I always stop at all the Visitor's centers because it's interesting to see how they change each year and what new things they have.

Then we went back to Moab and did more shopping and eating and then became slugs in the hotel  -  my friend studying and me writing in my journal and clearing 400 emails out of my work email inbox.  This sign is at the foot of the Dark Angel, so I thought I'd use it to end today's post.  Next time:  end of vacation.
 

   

Parks 3 - Capital Reef National Park

I have always had something of a soft spot for Capital Reef because it was the first Utah park I ever stayed in, and that was 19 years ago!  Hard to believe I've been going to the Utah parks for that long now.  I still really like this particular park. 

We arrived in Capital Reef National Park on Thursday morning, set up camp and then went to the Gifford House.  This is a little historic farmhouse that they use as a semi-museum, semi-souvenir store.  Our campsite this year was only a short walk from the Gifford House so as soon as camp was up, we went over there.  They also happen to sell small one-person pies that my friend has been dreaming about since before we left on this trip.  So we got pies, apple and cherry, and ate them first thing.  Then we went to the Visitor's Center and then back into Torrey for ice and Subway sandwiches.  Torrey's the closest place to get ice for the ice chest, and usually I have a massive fast food craving by the time we hit Torrey and am really looking forward to those Subway sandwiches.  This year we were especially lazy and  spoiled and ate out a lot rather than cooking at the campsite.  My fast food craving wasn't strong, but I still enjoyed them.

Like most of the parks in Utah, Capital Reef has some amazing rock formations, well worth seeing.  The first picture in this post is of a formation called the Castle, and it also shows some of the amazing rock colors in the area.  One of the things I like about the park though is the stark contrast between the rocky formations and desert, and the very green and fertile campground and area around the Fremont river.  There are fruit orchards there and massive old cottonwoods, and the campground is green and peaceful, with the sound of the river rushing by.  This time of year it's usually muddy and rushing also, from the afternoon thunderstorms.

We spent most of the time in Capital being lazy, driving scenic routes and visiting the petroglyphs.  Friday morning when we got up we hiked the short (1 1/2 mile) Fremont Trail.  I've been wanting to hike it again ever since I went up it 19 years ago, and try to take pictures to compare to the ones I took back then.  But usually we only spend one day at Capital Reef unless we're doing the Navajo Knobs hike.  So if we only spend a day, it's too hot in the afternoon  to go up that trail by the time we arrive and set up.  And if we stay an extra day and hike the Knobs, I'm too tired for the extra mile and a half.  So this year, just to do that hike, we stayed an extra day in Capital Reef without hiking the Knobs. 

I did get my pictures, but now I have to find the original ones I took back in 1993.  The picture looking down at the campground also shows another problem we had this year that was increasingly noticeable as we moved east across the state.  The atmosphere was very hazy from the summer wildfires in Utah and Colorado.  Late in the trip when we got to Grand Junction on the western side of Colorado and were pointed east into Colorado, you couldn't see the mountains at all! 

Of course that means we had plenty of time to be lazy, and drive to scenic overlooks like the Goosenecks and do scenic drives.  The mosquitoes were really bad this year, especially here at Capital Reef and at Arches, so here we used the car to escape the little demons.  I guess it's been a wet year out here.     

While we were visiting the petroglyphs we saw a gray fox bound up over a rock pile.  This time neither of us was fast enough to catch him on film though.   My friend did take some video of a group of tiny bats flitting and feasting over a wet part of the campground where the mosquitoes were really bad.  You can actually catch glimpses of them in the video. 

Saturday morning we got up and broke camp and drove to Moab.  We stayed in Moab and hiked in Arches and visited Canyonlands, so my last vacation blog post will be about those two parks.