More From Moab

Good evening everyone.

Well, I have decided not to continue the ‘favorite movies’ thing. Honestly, I just got a little bored with it. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about movies, but I just don’t see a point in doing a ‘grand-all-favorites’ kind of thing. There is just too much, it takes too much time and energy, plus you could just say that I wasn’t that interested in it to start with. Just a thought for a project, but quickly dissipated into something that was more of a nuisance than fun.

Now, back to the trip to Moab. The next day we awoke and went into Arches National Park. The first thing we did was Delicate Arch. The hike up as grueling, but worth it. We snapped some nice pictures and hung about for a while catching our breath and taking in the scenery. This arch I find rather interesting because unlike the others it is a stand alone arch, and has high cliffs all around. The cliffs on the sides were cool too, because they had little coves in them where water pools when it rains, and plants were growing in there, but no where else. I know it sounds boring, but they were interesting to look at. In fact, here’s one now:

And Delicate Arch:

These were there too (and cool. (about 300ish years old)):

Further up the park was the Firy Furnace. This I wanted to do, however due to time constraints, we could not. The Furnace consists of large chunks of rock that shoot straight up into the air, and you can walk around between them. To do this you either need to take a ranger guided hike or have a hiking permit. We had time for neither choice. But this is what it looks like from the outside:


Then it was off to The Devil’s Garden. This is at the very top of the park. There are numerous arches there, beautiful scenery and at the very end of this trail is the Dark Angel (more on that to come). The hike in Devil’s Garden started out easy, but then quickly went rough. There was one point where we were walking on a ‘rock fin’, with cliffs on either side. That was amazing, and the views were grand. There were sandstone rocks of deep red that came right out of the ground and seemed to stretch for miles. The pictures do not do it justice, but here are a couple:



The ‘rock fin’ we had to hike on:



This is where we had to get on the ‘rock fin’ to get to some of the arches on there (this one being Double-O Arch), and as you can see, the sign is quite hilarious because, well, the only thing we thought was: “what trail?”

Double-O Arch

I Don't Remember Arch

Wall Arch

Wooden Arch

Then it was to Dark Angel. This was the ‘end of the line’ of the park so to speak, with a mystical and magical name. That was very deceiving, because it was just I giant pillar of rock. The rock was not worth the hike, but the view and the silence was. Truly amazing (once again, the pictures do not do it justice):

Then we called it a day. I had pulled a muscle in my leg and we both had plenty of blisters and sunburns to show off, so then it was back to the hotel. After 8 hours of solid hiking, we rested well. I am also not going to bore you with the details of the drive home, unless you find I-15 fascinating. There were a couple of cool towns that I liked, and will return to for pictures, but that will be another story.

I know I have blogged about the desert before (see the New Year's Eve post), but I find myself needing to return there regularly. Once you go into the desert you can leave, but it does not leave you. It stays with you. It’s in my blood. The dry air, silence, solitude and beautiful surroundings are rivaled by few places on earth. Go there. Check it out. You will know what I mean.

T