Arches and Canyonlands

Slightly less running and biking the next week or so as we check out some of the national parks and monuments of southern Utah - there are quite a few, and we've heard they are all pretty awesome! We started with a couple just outside of Moab...

November 7
Arches National Park has thousands of documented arches - pretty ridiculous - and there are all kinds of other crazy rock formations here too - fun sandstone structures everywhere! We had a pretty laid back morning, and didn't get into the park until nearly midday. Our first stop was Park Avenue - a short flat trail led us through this area that the namers though reminiscent of skyscrapers in NYC.



Lots of 'fins' that will be future arches with some more eroding. We also hiked the most popular trail in the park to Delicate Arch - I could not imagine this place on a weekend! The trail included a couple spurs to an old homestead, and petroglyphs.

The next most popular area of the park is Devils Garden. We hiked a pretty fun trail with lots of tramping along and on top of fins, hitting the main destinations of Landscape Arch and Double O Arch.

Double O Arch

Landscape Arch

Part of the trail

Sadly, we didn't have the daylight or energy to do the entire seven mile loop. We did manage approximately ten miles between the three hikes though. We went back to Willow Springs Road to camp and found a slightly quieter spot than last week. Made some brown rice and red sauce for dinner and took in more Gotham for entertainment.

November 8
Klondike Bluffs - lots of little trail segments with fun names - northern area had the Klondike theme (Alaska, Homer, Nome), middle section was prehistoric as there are some dinosaur tracks in the area (Megasteps, Jurassic, Dynoflow), and southern was more mining related (Malachite, Jasper, Agate) - a few easy trails that were good for me to warm up on - the intermediate trails were rougher slickrock and more ledgy, but mostly manageable for me - the advanced trails were similar, but bigger ledges (per Rudy).

 

We returned to Willow Springs Road - we have a good little spot here with some shelter and off the main road - I'm happy we keep finding it open! I still had a little energy so got in a jog and just a little yoga before the sun went down. Meanwhile, Rudy rebuilt the rear shock on my bike, what a swell guy! We had a full day of sun and got to showering early, so it was actually pleasant! Bean and rice burritos for dinner, then continuation of the Gotham saga.

November 9
Canyonlands National Park has three areas - we just toured the 'Island in the Sky' district. A lot of windshield time, but amazing views and quite a few easy hikes.

There's even awesome views from the Visitor Center

We started at Whale Rock, a relatively easy one to the top, I have to say this rock looks less whale-ish than the one at Amasa, but spectacular views.



Next was Upheaval Dome - speculated to have formed by either a meteorite from above, or a salt layer from below causing sedimentary layers to tilt and erode into an interesting crater.



We then checked out Aztec Butte, with a little side trail to some Peubloan granaries - short term food storage hidden in the cliffs - this trail had a little more rock scrambling to enjoy the views.

I just liked these rock layers

Granaries

The road ends at Grand Viewpoint Overlook, with a relatively easy trail with views of the other two districts of the park - Needles and Maze.

Monument Basin

The Maze District

The Needles District

On the way out of the park we stopped at Buck Canyon Overlook - the only non hiking stop.



Final destination was Mesa Arch, another short easy trail to incredible views and a precarious looking arch!

Barely hanging on the cliff edge!

We were back at our nice Willow Springs Road spot at about sunset for another good solar shower (the sun here is incredible - I think it only reached 60F, but I was in a tank top for most of the hiking!), shells and cheese, plus sauteed squash for dinner, and more Gotham.