And Off We Go - First Stop: Arches National Park

It's that time of year again, when it starts getting cool and rainy in the Pacific Northwest and Bruce heads south.  He usually goes alone while I enjoy some time in the snow on the mountains before joining him.  This year, he asked me to ride down with him before heading back to the PNW, and looking forward to all kinds of new stops, I happily agreed.

So, after getting everything packed up (thanks to the help of the kids), we got up early in the morning to set out.  I turned on the local news and started making our travel mugs of tea and hot chocolate.  Then I learned that one of the roads we would normally take was closed in both directions because of an overturned tractor trailor.  There were apparently no injuries, but the truck driver had already been detained for DUI.  We decided to go ahead and let the GPS reroute us.  It took a little extra time, but this was a great route!  When we're coming home in the spring, Chinook Pass is still closed because of avalanch risk.  But it's open in the fall before the first major and lasting snowfalls, and it's a beautiful drive going over my favorite mountain, Mt. Rainier (A/K/A Tahoma in her indigenous name).

As we actually got on the mountain, there was some low fog that just fell off to the side.

The weather cleared and we made it to Moab, Utah, with no issues.  In spite of my best efforts (LOL), I missed the window for getting the timed entry tickets for Arches National Park, so we decided to get up early and take in the sunrise.  I had heard that Landscape Arch was the best place for sunrise, so we headed all the way out to the end of the road, behind a long line of cars, though we were consistently moving.  We were driving slow, so I tried my best to get some pre-sunrise shots of some of the formations we drove by.  My camera was so confused!  Low light, but fast shutter because we were driving!  This is the best I could get.

Won't win any awards by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm happy with them given the circumstances.

We pulled into the Devil's Garden parking lot, which was already full, and had breakfast.  Landscape Arch is on the way to Devil's Garden, often considered the ultimate location in Arches and still far beyond my capabilities.

As the sun started coming up, I decided to head out.  Bruce didn't feel he was up to the hike, so he stayed behind and read his book.  We've done a lot of the national parks, but this is the first one I've seen that has displays for the blind.  Many signs were in braille, and they had to-scale models for touching and feeling what the particular formation is.

Walking up the trail, I kept turning around and looking behind me.  The formations were so beautiful with the colorful, pre-sunrise skies behind them.  And there was the periodic (though fairly rare) bloom.

I made it to Landscape Arch just before sunrise.  I was disappointed because I was thinking that the arch itself would be in the sunrise picture, but sunrise was directly opposite the arch.  Lighting was beautiful once the sun came up, though!

I wasn't the only one who was expecting sunrise over the arch.  I walked back with a 75-year-old lady who got up at 5:00 am just to see the sunrise over Landscape Arch.  But, it was still a lovely hike.

Upon my return, Bruce had found a spot in the main parking lot so I didn't have to walk all the way back into the spill over spaces.  He said he had watched some chipmunks playing around in the grass, but they were gone by the time I got there.  This was almost the only animal I saw in the entire park, and I have come to the conclusion that it must be the park bird!  Ravens everywhere!  I never once heard one say, "Nevermore," though.

Our next stop would have been a better place to enjoy sunrise (though probably not the best), Skyine Arch.  Just a short walk up a few stone steps.

Driving on down the main road, there were some awesome views of the layers of low clouds on the La Sal Mountains.  Much nicer than the La Sal viewpoint later in the morning.

I also wanted to see what shots would look like with the sun flare on them.  I think I like it.

And one of many, many gorgeous views on the roadside.

Formations like these are called "fins".  They are mostly found in Devil's Garden, but there are some scattered in other places.

There were amazing views at the Fiery Furnace Overlook, including an example of how the park changes over time.

The formations are beautiful, though the colors aren't as vivid and varied as they are in other parks, like Bryce.  Even the white stripes here tend to have the reddish hue from the iron-rich soil.

Our next stop was Delicate Arch.  I was happy with the lower view and didn't hike up to the upper viewpoint.  If you look closely at the picture, you can see the line of people on the left waiting for their turn to get the iconic shot of this arch that has come to represent Utah.  I liked this wide-angle shot best with the other formations beside it, especially the one that reminds me of the toadstools in the Grand Staircase National Monument that I saw on the way back to the PNW last year.

There are a few places in the park (and below Delicate Arch is one of them) that used to be under water.  The same iron-rich volcanic ash that was used to form the red rocks that ultimately became the arches and other formations acted differently under water.  Instead of oxidating and becoming rust colored, they "reduced" and left a greenish-blue shade to the rocks.

As we pulled off the main road toward the Windows, we got this shot of Balanced Rock.

They had some construction going on and many of the pull-outs were blocked.  Traffic was stopped at one place with cars having to follow a pilot car between work areas.  No problem, though.  The views are lovely.  But we did, ultimately, make it to the windows, which were awesome, including Tunnel Arch.  This would have probably been the best spot to watch the sunrise.  We know better for next time!

If you go, please don't be like these people.  The ground in Arches has special bacteria and lichens that live on the rock and soil.  Please stay on the trails.  When you leave the trail (like going to be under Tunnel Arch), you are stepping on those lliving creatures and killing them.

From Tunnel Arch, North Window and South Window look like a little like a face!

There were a few of these wildflowers along the trail.

After finishing that trail, I came back to the toilets and saw this sign.  And you can see the Parade of Elephants and the formation that contains Double Arch in the background.  It ended up being a trick.  I knew there was another spot for the trailhead for Double Arch, but I had to check.  At the end of the trail was a set of steep stairs leading down to the Double Arch trailhead parking lot!  I went back to the car and we drove to the trailhead.  

Double Arch is visible from the parking lot and the trail is uphill, not bad, but I had just finished the Windows, and I didn't really feel like doing more uphill.  So, my shots are just from the lot.  I like them, though.  If I hadn't, I would have rested in the car a bit and then walked up.

The Garden of Eden was closed for the repaving they were doing, so we missed that.  But Balanced Rock looked much different from the angle at its actual pullout.  You can see how the base of the rock is eroding.  I wonder how long it will take for Balanced Rock to go the same way as its smaller cousin, Chip Off The Ol' Block, which collapsed in 1974.

This blog would never end if I provided pictures of all of the amazing formations, so I'll finish with a really nice view from the Courthouse area.

As we were leaving the park, we had to swerve and stop for a small animal that was in the middle of the road.  It moved too fast for us to identify it, but we don't think it had a long enough tail to be a kangaroo rat.  It did give us an opportunity to see how long the line was to get into the park with a timed entry reservation and made us kind of happy that we missed that window!

After the park, we headed out in search of the potash ponds.  For now, I'm going to start going through those shots so I can tell you about them in the next blog!