The Road Goes Ever On

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Arches National Park, IV: Still More Arches

Arches NP has more than 2,000 arches, the world's greatest concentration of these things. Most, I think, are within the various sizeable clumps of fins, like the "Fiery Furnace," (next post), and are thus not particularly accessible. We took a number of hikes in the park and saw a dozen or more of the best known arches, a few of which are below.

Tunnel Arch

Pine Tree Arch

Fins...wherefrom arches come...

Sand Dune Arch, within the fins above

Broken Arch

Delicate Arch

Skyline Arch

Sunset view from our "campsite" in the desert

Arches National Park, III: Landscape Arch

The most impressive of Arches NP's arches, I think, is Landscape Arch, not only its great size and length but also its position and delicate nature. At 290 feet, it is the world's longest natural stone span.

For much of our time in the Arches/Moab/Canyonlands area, we camped like
regular Red Rock troopers, out on the desert, in the dispersed camping area along
Willow Springs road, off route 191

Moon sighting along the trail to Landscape Arch

Us, with Landscape Arch behind us

Closer up

Standard view; almost the length of a football field

The trail not taken: a "primitive" trail went on beyond Landscape Arch

Neither of us felt like the trail's exposure...

Environs

The Double O arch, near Landscape

Monday, November 2, 2015

Arches National Park, II: Park Avenue

Next day, among other explorations in Moab, we hiked the short Park Avenue trail in Arches, so-called because the high walls on either side reminded early non-native visitors of Manhattan's tall buildings. Evidently the sun was getting to them.

It's just a mile or so that short-cuts a bend in the Park road

But the scenery is exemplary

Thus; we saw The Martian a few weeks ago, and walking
around here it is so nice to see some green now and then to
remind us we are not on an EVA on the red planet

Yes, that's Balanced Rock in the far distant
right

The Three Gossips: Moe, Larry and Curly

More typical Canyonlands vistas

The micro is just as interesting as the macro; most of this
sandstone was put down as part of water action, seas, lakes,
rivers, streams, beaches, shores, over a 300 million year period;
fascinating to look at the record of wave and other action
recorded in the rock

Thus, ditto

Nature imitates art...origin of flame stitch, which some of us
associate with the American southwest...actually, it is thought
to be Hungarian, by way of Florence, and is known in the
needle-point world as "Bargello," which really Thai's things
together for me; impressed, Tawana? Thank you, again,
Wikipedia

Incipient arch...give it another 10 million years...

Morning Glory Natural Bridge

After our first day's exploration of Arches NP we drove into Moab to look around and to get some fuel. In this part of the world you want to keep the fuel guage on the full side. We then drove up the Colorado River a few miles, looking for sites in the several BLM campgrounds thereabouts and finally found one. After some further reconnaissance, we decided next day we would do the unfortunately named "Negro Bill" trail up a big side canyon to see the Morning Glory Natural Bridge, at 243 feet, the fifth longest rock span in the US. "Negro Bill" was Bill Granstaff, who settled in the area in 1877. Why not just call it the "Granstaff Trail" we wondered, but the snarky lady at the TI in Moab later informed us it was "part of our history" and would not be changed. It could be worse, I suppose.

Camped just down from the side canyon and the
next day's trail

The Colorado River, from our campsite; hmmm, looks tame
enough here...

Big walls all around

Starting up the trail

Ditto; interestingly, the sandstone on this side of the river is
not nearly so red as on the other side

Some of the walls were in the thousand foot range, I'd guess

Caves and such along the 2 mile trail

The little creek that the trail mostly followed--and crossed 11
times!

Hard to get lost in a box canyon

A great trail, despite the 11 crossings

First view of Morning Glory

Up closer; 243 feet span

So people often ask me, "Mark, what's the
difference between a natural bridge and a
natural arch?" The difference is that a natural
bridge is caused largely by stream erosion, and
tends to be flatter on top; in the little seep and
crack above you can see what is left of stream
action today

Back in the cave behind Morning Glory

Nice hike, nice feature, and thank you for waterproof boots

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Arches National Park, I

After leaving Montana--camping last at Clark Canyon--we drove on south, spending a bit of time in northern Utah to find some camper parts, but eventually on further still to the Canyonlands region in southeastern Utah, arriving Monday night and parking out in the boonies north of Moab, near the Willow Springs road. Lots of dispersed camping there, as the forest service calls it. Our first day in the region we spent simply exploring Arches National Park. We'd been there before, in 1990, but our memories were few and faint. We're planning to spend a month or more in Utah's pretty incredible array of national parks, monuments, and other entities. I've never had a taste for desert landscapes, but it's definitely growing.