Arches, Canyonlands, and so much more... |
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| May 15: Arches it is, from early, early morning to early afternoon, we explore the Nat'l Park. We start at 4am and go, go, go... | |
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| Moon over a rock... | North & South Windows |
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| Le Sal Mountains at sunrise | looking through the North window as the sun lightens the sky |
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| man trying to catch the moon | early light on the mesas |
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| Turret Arch with the shadow from North/South Windows, the small patch of light is coming through North Window. | backside of South and North Windows arch, with Jim in the bottom right corner :) |
| After watching the sun come up, we went into the rest of the park to do more site-seeing. We first headed to Delicate Arch so that we could beat the crowds, even though they recommend the view in the late afternoon for the light, but there is something to be said for the solitude that we had. | |
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| morning light, fluffy clouds and part of Double Arch | Double Arch |
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| Delicate Arch Trail, 3 miles round trip, up lots of slick rock | Up we go, up and over all that slickrock. |
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| petrified sand dunes along the way to Delicate Arch | some bridge on the way up to Delicate Arch |
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| up on the trail to Delicate Arch | Delicate Arch |
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| Bighorn sheep and men hunting them, petroglyphs from the Ute A.D 1200s to A.D. 1880 | backside of Delicate Arch from the lower viewpoint |
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| Skyline Arch | Trailhead for Devils Garden, if you do the whole trip, over 6 miles roundtrip. We only did about 2 miles round trip, but you add that up with the Delicate Arch hike, the hike around Windows, we did just a little of 6 miles total during the day. |
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| another bridge along the trail to Landscape Arch | Landscape Arch |
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| Tunnel Arch | Pine Tree Arch |
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Private Arch, we did not hike that far in, we were pretty "pooped" by this time, we had been up since 4am and this was the end of our day in the Arches, even though it was just around lunch time. |
| May 16: We signed up for a hike with Moab Adventure Center to hike in the Fiery Furnace in Arches. The hike requires a permit from the Arches Nat'l Park and they really recommend a guide, either a Ranger or someone else who knows the area. We wanted to do something that was different and we wanted to see slot canyons, so we went for it. | |
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| This is a birds eye view of the "fins" that make up Fiery Furnace. They all go North/South, but many of the canyons are dead ends, so if you don't know the hike, don't go. | Here is the sign telling people to go with a Ranger (which includes a hiking permit) or go buy one. You get to watch a 9 minute video before you go in about what it's like inside and about areas that are protected and be very careful. |
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| This is where the trail goes in and comes out, but once you are in there, different tours/rangers have their own routes, so you can not be assured you know what you are doing unless you have done it before. | a 3 minute video made up of the pictures I took while hiking inside the Fiery Furnace, there is music, so turn on your sound :) |
| May 17: After a lazy Sunday morning, we stop at one of the local sandwich places, eat some lunch and grab a couple of sandwiches for dinner in the park. We start at the Canyonlands Nat'l Park, hit all the viewpoints in the "Island in the Sky" section, including Mesa Arch. Around 5 pm, we head over to Dead Horse State Park. It's a little bit of a drive, we take a couple of pictures, sit down and enjoy our dinner, then go take more pictures. We watch the sun go down and the colors come out. | |
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| 2 minute video of a few of the Canyonlands highpoints and some sunset pictures from Dead Horse. | Desert lupines by the visitors center. |
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| Some of the canyons look like huge dinosaur footprints when looked at from above... | The sun setting on the Canyonlands. |
| May 19: Today is another scenic drive along the Colorado River on Byway 279 to Potash. The Colorado is heading into the Canyonlands Nat'l Park (we could drive into it also, if we wanted to take a very narrow, 4x4 type road, but chose not to do it). | |
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| The black stuff is called "Cliff Varnish", there are several stories on what causes it, but too scientific for me. | The Indians loved it though, they would carve pictures or petroglyphs (motifs that are pecked, ground, incised, abraded, or scratched on the rock surface). These were probably done between A.D. 450 to A.D. 1250. So they are just a little bit old. |
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| There were signs along the way to let us know where to look for the petroglyphs. | I really liked this bear petroglyphs. |
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| These people climbed up to what are some type of dinosaur track. On that big slab, those two white 3 toed prints are the tracks. They got up, but had a really hard time getting down. | This is Jug Handle Arch along the drive. |
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| As we drove along, we watched the weather change and head towards us, we kept our eyes on it closely, we didn't want to get caught in it... | The placid Colorado River, looks like a reflecting pool it is so calm, but it was really moving along, you just wouldn't know it. |
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| This ATV'er just came down from the Potash road from the Canyonlands side. There were a small group and they were very dirty and very hot looking... | This group was being brought back from a 3-day canoeing trip along the Green River up to where it merges into the Colorado River. |
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| These people just left the landing on a jet boat tour up the Colorado, no rapids, just beautiful red rock canyon scenery. | Ok, time to leave, there is rain in them there hills... |
| May 20: another hike day, we did the Negro Bill Canyon Trail, it's a 4 mile round trip hike along a stream up to Morning Glory Natural Bridge which is 243 feet long and the sixth-longest natural rock span in the US. We were told to do it in the afternoon, that there would be shade, but I think they meant later than we did it :) It was fun, hard work for us out of shape people, but well worth the trip. | |
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| Trailhead for Negro Bill Canyon, Jim is all ready to go | boy, is he ready to go, heading down the trail... |
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| The creek where it is very wide and open in the canyon. | further down into the canyon, Jim just had to take a picture of me :P |
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| We were on the lookout for beavers, but never saw any, but we did see lots of little waterfalls. | We had several water crossings. We really didn't need the trekking poles, but we had just bought them and wanted to try them out. |
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| lots of petrified sand dunes and other red rock cliffs to be seen as we hiked up the canyon. | Our first view of the bridge, we are still quite a ways from it. It was too big to get a good picture of it when right under it :( |
| What a great time in Moab! We crammed in so much, but there was still so much to try. We will definitely go back, I want to do a hummer trip out on the slickrock called "Devils Revenge"! | |
