Thursday, August 04, 2005

BWE Saturday 7/16: Arches, Canyonlands, & Green River

I'd have liked nothing better than to have a slow, peaceful morning at the B&B, sipping coffe on the ramada-covered porch...but nothing drives you along like the knowledge that every few minutes the temperature where you intend to hike rises a few degrees. We wanted to again visit Arches, then head out to Canyonlands, then up to Green River for the evening.

We did get out pretty promptly (for us), so it wasn't TOO hot by the time we got to the Devil's Garden parking lot for our hike out to Landscape and Double O arches. One demented sun-worshiper was even working on their tan in a bikini while reading Bulfinch's Mythology. The paramedics must have taken her away by the time we returned, because she wasn't up there.


As you might expect, the trail began pretty crowded with families of all shapes and sizes, many with only flip-flops, a little water bottle, and no head coverage. We looked overdone in comparison with hydration packs, boots, hats, and walking staffs...but I know we were more comfortable. There's just something sinful about being able to take a drive of cold water out in the middle of the hot desert!

Landscape Arch is long and delicate (remember I said it was originally supposed to be named Delicate Arch), and you can't go under it any more after a rockfall (on the right) caused many tons of it to shave off in the 70's. It's very sandy at the observation area, so it felt especially especially hot.



We didn't linger long here, but continued onward towards Double O Arch. The trail immediately becomes less manicured (i.e., more interesting) and less populated (i.e. more peaceful), and we clambered up and down through slickrock valleys and ridges, and along narrow rock fins to get to our destination. Hiking on the slickrock formations in Utah is like a playground for grownups!







Double O Arch is named for the two holes in a slickrock fin that wind and rain have carved over time. Smooth and beautifully rounded, it's quite comfortable to sit in the smaller "O" and relax. You're in the shade, and the opening (which was created by the wind, after all) focuses the breeze nicely on you. We had lunch there and clambered around on the beautiful formations.

The day was heating up rapidly, so we hustled back to the crowds and the parking lot. A great way to spend the morning, but we still had Canyonlands to go.

After a relaxing lunch in Moab, we headed out to Canyonlands. This NP is north and west of Moab, and . It's huge (527 square miles!), has little in the way of tourist facilities, and is forbiddingly hot in the summer and remote. It's also an amazing place. When people think of vast canyons, of course they think of the Grand Canyon. It's still my favorite, but Canyonlands is awe-inspiring in a different dimension: instead of one gigantic, hard-to-comprehend canyon, viewing Canyonlands from Grand View point brings you innumerable smaller canyons as far as the eye can see across 270 degrees of view. And "smaller" is a relative term; most of them are well over 1000' deep. If you look carefully at the photo in the Grand View point link, you'll see fine lines around the aptly-named White Rim. That's a jeep track that's wide enough to hold two jeeps side by side most places!

Canyonlands is split into three districts by the Green and Colorado rivers, which form sort of a "Y" in the park. The place where the two rivers meet is known as the Confluence. The upper section is called Island In The Sky because it's on a huge mesa that overlooks all the canyons. Grand View Point is on the southern tip of the mesa. The lower right is the Needles District, named for the needle-like formations found there. If you look at the map of the Grand View point photo, you'll see markers for the confluence on the right...but you still can't even see any rivers because it's so convoluted.
And the lower-left (southwestern) district is aptly named The Maze, for its many little-explored maze-like canyons. The Maze is the least accessible, and least visited section of land in the lower 48. It really wasn't even explored until the late 50's and early 60s. The ranger station on the west side is a 2 1/2 hour drive from the closest town, the last 46 miles on a dirt road. The canyons of The Maze are another 3 to 6 hours using high-clearance 4WD vehicles. We got close on the east side by floating down past the confluence to Spanish Bottom, hiking 1000' to the top of the river canyon, hking another mile or so inland...and we still didn't get to where we could see any of the maze canyons. (More on this later.) Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire has an excellent chapter on what it was like to explore the district in the late '50s.

So. All us tourists did before we started the raft trip is drive into the paved roads of the Island In The Sky district, take a few photos, and zoom up to Green River!

Monday, August 01, 2005

BWE Friday 7/15: Moab and Arches NP

Our trip was really split into two parts. The first section was a six-day rafting trip down the Colorado River through Canyonlands National Park to the beginning of Lake Powell, and the second was doing various kinds of touristy hikey things in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP. This made preparations rather schizophrenic, as there wasn't a lot of overlap between the two types of gear beyond hiking boots!

After arriving in Salt Lake City uneventfully, we drove down to Moab. Eventually. We managed to miss the turn off from I-15 to US 6 at least three times, and added at least an hour to our drive. Connor was asleep; when he woke up he was astounded (and dismayed) to find we were basically in the same place he'd fallen asleep! But really we had worked hard in the mean time, at $2.50 / gallon.

This vacation was also an exercise in temperatures. In SLC it was in the low to mid 90's when we left; when we arrived at the Arches parking lot it was 110 degrees at about 5 PM. We hung around long enough to get our bearings and a map, then drove into town to the B&B we were staying at. Sunflower Hill is a beautiful multi-structure B&B in the north end of Moab. We had a room called The Garret, which as you might think is located on the top floor of one of the buildings. It was very nice, and Connor had his room (which he loves).

But alas, the theme of this vacation was "Don't stand still!" so we were never in one place long enough to really relax. Too much to see!

We went back to Arches in the evening to hike out to Delicate Arch in that precious time, when the sun has lost most of its heat but it's not dark out yet. Plus you get the added benefit of seeing the park near sunset when the shadows make the views more dramatic. This shot of Balanced Rock (left) was taken out the window at about 45 MPH while speeding to the Delicate Arch trailhead before sunset.

We hustled out to the arch just as the sun had set, climbing up a long slickrock rise to get there. This arch, the best known in the world probably, is perched at the edge of a pretty significant dropoff, so it's an interesting experience walking around on the sculpted sandstone surface around it. Interesting factoid: Delicate Arch was originally supposed to be named Landscape Arch, and the other (which really is much more delicate) was to be named Delicate. But someone got them mixed up, and it stuck.

A nice feature of this arch is that, despite its fame, it isn't all roped or fenced off. You can walk right up to its base and touch it. Perhaps it benefits from its mild difficulty getting there from the heat, the altitude of 4600 feet, and the minor climb: you probably won't be standing next to a fat guy smoking a cigarette (FGSC).
We stuck around until it was a little too dark, then made our way back. Even though it's a pretty well-used trail, in the serious dark of the desert and the slickrock made the trail hard to find at times. I used my handheld GPS to retrace the route I'd taken out there, and we were back to the car in no time with a good view of stars to boot.

This was Connor's first hike in quite a while, and he's grown up quite a bit. He's MUCH taller and stronger, and we were pleased with how he could keep up perfectly well.


It meant we could ramp up our hiking plans just a bit!