The Savage Traveler: Out West Adventure: Part 2--Dead Horse Point, Canyonlands, and Arches, Days 7-9

We rose early Thursday to break camp and get to nearby Arches National Park. The Visitor Center is down nearly at the level of the Colorado River, just a few miles north of Moab. We were happy to find that we could leave our trailer in the parking lot and decided to wait to view their video about the park for two reasons; this park gets over a million visitors a year and people were already pouring in and it was getting hot and we had some rugged trails we wanted to hike to see some of the 2000 arches that have been charted in the park. First we made a reservation by phone at an RV Park in Moab then we were ready to explore by about 9:30.

Started by driving up the side of the canyon to get into the park proper. Bypassed most of the features closer to the entrance.

Hiked the strenuous 3 mile trail to view Delicate Arch in its natural amphitheater setting. Along the way we saw the 100+ year old cabin for the Wolfe Ranch. This was the hardest trail we had taken so far, with an elevation change of 480 feet, much of it up the side of “slippery rock” and the end of it along a narrow ledge cut into the steep wall of rock. It was a spectacular sight and well-worth the difficult climb. I was very proud to have been able to make it and couldn’t believe the (young) people making the climb with kids in packs on their backs. One woman was starting out with a kid in a stroller but there is no way she could finish that trail with a stroller.

Drove on to farthest point at Devil’s Garden area. We had our picnic lunch in the shade nestled next to looming red rocks. Then we hiked 1.6 miles to see Tunnel, Pine Tree, and finally Landscape Arch. Landscape is so named because at 306ft. it is the longest expanse in the park. In 1995 it dropped a 60 ton chunk off its eastern span, which alert hikers managed to capture on video. Must have been pretty exciting!!

We made more stops on our way back, having completed two of the major hikes we wanted to do. We took a short .3 mile trail to Sand Dune Arch, walking through fine red sand much like the white sands at Sleeping Bear back in Michigan. It was cool and pleasant within the narrow rock walls to get there.

The last major trail was one mile long in the Windows Area to view North and South Window Arches and Turret Arch. Marv had the energy to climb up underneath Turret Arch but, having hiked 6 miles, I was done for by then. Marv still had energy enough to hike another half a mile to view Double Arch in the same Windows area.

Finally we walked partway around Balancing Rock to get pictures of this iconic landmark.

While at the Balancing Rock parking lot we parked next to the “Google Streets” car! The driver told us he was doing “Street views” of the trails in the park. The camera and equipment weigh 40lbs! He told us that his work will be on Google maps/earth in 4 to 6 months. He is the only person doing this west of the Mississippi and his friend covers the states east of the river.

It was a breeze to coast back down to the Visitors Center where we watched their video by Discovery Channel on what we had just seen. We were incredibly bushed by our 9 hour day as we made our way to the RV Park. It turned out to be tight packed and noisy. But we took a quick dip in their pool before taking showers and then walked a block to the Moab Brewing Company, which Janice and Lou had recommended to us. We had great dinners of chicken (Marv) and beef (Peggy) bar-b-que with two of their brews and had enough leftovers for lunch the next day. We were very frustrated by the RV Park’s convoluted WiFi access and finally gave up trying to get anything done and fell, exhausted, into bed with earplugs to shut out the noisy neighbors going strong after midnight.

Petroglyphs behind Wolfe cabin

Those specks on the rock hill are people. Yep, that's where we're heading!

Peggy climbing the slippery rock hill

Sand at the top of the rock hill, but we're not to the Delicate Arch yet

Narrow ledge to get around the cap of the hill to Delicate Arch

FINALLY!!! Delicate Arch

Tunnel Arch

Yucca blooming by the trail

Marv under Pine Tree Arch

Arch just beyond Landscape Arch

Trail to Sand Dune Arch

Under Sand Dune Arch

Narrows on path to Sand Dune Arch. It was nice and cool in there.

Broken Arch

More Moab Desert flowers

Marv doing his part to uphold the Park at North Window Arch

View through North Window Arch

Turret Arch

Double Arch

The GOOGLE Street View Guy!

Balancing Arch

Wednesday was devoted to exploring the Island in the Sky region of Canyonlands National Park, just a few miles from Horsethief Campground. The park has three regions. Island in the Sky at 5800ft. is most accessible and therefore most visited by about 300,000 people a year. Needles is south of Moab and gets 200,000 visitors and The Maze, which is west, is accessible only by four-wheel drive and then hiking. One is recommended to enter it only with a guide and they get only 25,000 visitors a year. The three areas are defined, formed, and separated by the Green River and the Colorado River. To make the most of our time we stopped first at the Visitors Center for a video and our passport stamp then began their Scenic Drive to see the features of the park:

With few stops we drove the spur to Upheaval Dome to take the 1.8 mile moderate trail to two overlooks. There was a lot of up with some down and over “slippery rock” (which wasn’t slippery). There are two main theories of what caused the uplift at the bottom of a 1/3 mile across depression—either a giant asteroid or the rising of a buried salt dome. Either away, it’s an eerie sight.

Drove to the Green River Overlook to see the many canyons carved by the river 2200 feet below.

Back to the main drive with a stop at White Rim Overlook for a very windy picnic lunch with the temperatures in the low 80s.

At the end of the drive we hiked the 2.0 mile trail to the Grand View, looking down 1200 feet to white rim, the plateau through which the Colorado and Green Rivers have cut another 1000 feet down. From here one can see for miles in every direction, including the snow capped 12000ft La Sal Mountains to the east, looming above Moab.

A half mile hike to the cliff-edge Mesa Arch. There we traded picture-taking with a charming couple from Poland that we had noticed at other stops and whom we would see the next day at Arches.

By then we were exhausted and “hiked out”. We had driven 37 miles inside the park and hiked for 4.3 miles over some pretty rough terrain and in desert conditions. We returned to the campsite to relax and make dinner. When we went up to the next campsite to take pictures of the sunset we got some camera tricks from a young German man traveling with his father. They had identical Canon cameras with different lenses so he was using both for different effects. Later in the evening he brought us a Styrofoam cooler with lots of dried and canned food, explaining that a Dutch couple had given them to him and his dad before they flew home and they weren’t going to need them all. Very nice! Each night was a wonderful temperature for sleeping and the campground was absolutely silent leaving us big fans of BLM dry camping.

The Upheaval Dome from first Overlook

Green River Canyons and White Rim Trail

From Green River Overlook

Blooming Desert Flowers

Mesa Arch

Second Sunset

Tues. May 14: We picked up as quickly as possible, slowed a bit by conversation with the friendly couple next to us from Wyoming. Following the CD we did the west side of Capitol Reef with a couple of stops to see and photograph Chimney Rock and the panorama looking over the reef, the Henrie Mountains, and the vast surrounding landscape. The third and final scenic drive on the CD took us to the east side of the Park, where we could see what the reef looks like from the east, or the “back”. We met a German couple at the east entrance, just entering the park for the first time, and we gave the CD to them to use, since we would have no more use for it. Scenic Byway 24 followed the Fremont River for many miles through valleys and canyons sometimes broad, sometimes narrow. We turned north at Hanksville and drove 46 miles through the San Raphael Desert before joining I70 east to 191 south to Moab, Utah.

More petroglyphs

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Moab Desert

We hoped to camp along the Colorado River but the first campsite was full and the second was closed for spraying. Before driving further along the river without knowing if we’d find camping, we decided to go to the travel information spot in Moab and on their recommendation decided to go to Horsethief, a BLM Campground, between Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. We bought some groceries and then headed up into the high desert on the plateau. The temperature in Moab had been in the mid-nineties and at 2200 feet higher it was still in the lower nineties. We will be dry camping, meaning the campground of 56 sites has outhouses and picnic tables but no water. Anticipating this, we had filled with water in the morning and were in good shape for Horsethief. By the time we had set-up and relaxed with a beer in the shade it was nearly 5:00. But Dead Horse Point State Park was only a couple of miles away. So we drove over there and went through their visitor center to learn about desert pothole ecosystems and cryptobiotic soils, and their importance to the animals and plants that exist in this formidable climate. There was a nice nature trail along the rim of the steep cliff that goes down to the Colorado River 2200 feet below. Then we drove out to Dead Horse Point where cowboys would drive wild ponies across the narrow necked ridge onto the point and then block their exit to pick out ponies they wanted. Legend has it that one time they didn't release the ponies they didn’t want to keep, leaving them on the point, to die from lack of water within sight but not reach of the Colorado River. By the time we finished on the Point it was 6:30 and the temperature had dropped into the high eighties so we thought we'd bike the 4.4 mile Pyramid Point Trail. The park brochure listed it as an easy to moderate trail that should take about an hour. It showed that it started out with the Intrepid Trail, which is only a mile and was listed as easy and perfect for families with young children or very beginning riders. Well, I made it a few hundred yards over the large rock outcroppings and loose sand and gravel, before I admitted my butt was being thoroughly kicked and I was in over my head. Marv went on as far as the rim edge and overlook, about half a mile perhaps, before he too turned back to join me as I made my way back to the truck. It was quite demoralizing and made us feel pretty old for the first time. Back at the campsite the lowering temperature and friendly interactions with some fellow campers restored our spirits as we made dinner, waiting to eat our Spanish Rice and salads until we had walked up the hill to view a spectacular sunset. The campground was silent as we cleaned up and relaxed before bedtime.