Arches National Park (mostly)

25 Aug 2010--Went to Arches National Park yesterday, but didn't have enough time to see everything, so we need a 2nd trip. We spent several hours there, but had to get back to the RV to feed and water Fluffy before going back out last night to Dead Horse Point State Park. Every month, during the full moon, they have a moonlight hike there, so we thought we would check that out.

Arches is just crazy beautiful...every time I think I can't see anything better than our previous trip, something like this pops up and I look in awe at the beauty. The main road thru the park is 35 miles long, but we haven't seen any info on total acreage so far...it just seems as far as the eye can see, it is beautiful!



This is looking down into the visitor center area...and you can actually see the fault they are talking about.

Our first lengthy stop, and so far the most dazzling part of the park, was a spot called "Park Avenue". We hiked out into the center of the valley to see what was out beyond the rocks you could see from the road...and it just got prettier and prettier. It was about 96 degrees though, with not a bit of breeze, so it was brutal. The stitch pics are the best, and the video is incredible!

This area is called the "3 Gossips"...based on the 3 rock formations in the back, left of the pic.

The park is not all rock formations, here are some former sand dunes, calcified.

And here is one of the 2 most famous rocks in the park...we didn't see the other one yet, so I will show that in the next blog. The bottom, right pic shows a bunch of rocks that people build as they are going thru the park...they are all over the place.

I don't remember what these areas are, but I love the pics, so posted them anyway. haha

This is called the "Garden of Eden".

If you would like to know how these arches happen, here is some info.

There are over 2000 arches in the park, with this one being called "Double Arches". We were surprised that they let people walk/climb these formations, not only because they are ancient and you would think they would be more careful to preserve them, but we also read that as recently as August 2008 one of the huge arches collapsed...lucky it fell during the night and no one was under/around it.

Here is Cathy beginning the climb to the top of Double Arches.

And then me getting to the top!

And then, what goes up must, of course, come down!

Starting out!

A little lower!

Almost there!

At the top of Double Arches, this was the view...so as funny as it was getting up and down, the effort was worth it!

A couple pics as we leave the park for the day.

We left the park to go home for supper and take care of Fluffy, and then headed right back out for the moonlight hike at Dead Horse Point State Park. What we didn't know is that the state park overlooks the Canyonlands National Park that we will be going to see in a couple days, but the scenery was gorgeous, so that was alright.

There is a legend that goes along with the name of the park, and it is explained here. Basically it talks about cowboys rounding up wild horses, and then some of them dying here. Not a nice story.

Looking from Dead Horse Point into the Canyonlands.

We got a few good pics, but didn't feel the trip was worth it. I counted 82 people on the hike, so unless you were on top of the naturalist leading the hike, you couldn't hear a word she was saying. In addition to that, she walked too fast, so as it got darker and darker, she was leaving a lot of people behind...a lot of people with children! It didn't feel like a very safe area in the dark.