17) Arches National Park, October 3 - October 11, 2009

After we finished our hike at Black Canyon, we broke camp and headed out towards Arches, continuing our southerly trek to stay ahead of winter. While driving along, BYK was reading about Arches and things along the path to Arches. It turns out that Arches’ campground fills early in the day, even this late in the year. She also read the description of Colorado National Monument, which happened to be right along our path. It sounded great, so we decided to stop there. We got there early enough to do a quick camp setup and get to the VC before it closed. We talked with the ranger and saw two good orientation movies; geology of CNM and photo ops of CNM. Then we drove part of the Rim Rock Drive hitting all of the overlooks and hiking Otto’s Trail and the Coke Oven Trail before it got too dark. After all of this, we decided we would probably need to camp two nights so that we’d have one more full day to see the rest of the Monument. The next day, we finished driving the Rim Rock Drive and hiked Window Rock Trail and the Devil’s Kitchen Trail. CNM is one of those hidden gems that we have stumbled across all along our trip. The scenery was really great.

Monument Canyon , Colorado National Monument

The next day, we got up early and headed to Arches to get there before all of the camp sites were gone. However, the process at this park is to show up at about 7:00 a.m., line up, and see if there’s still a camp site when you get to the front of the line. About 6:00 p.m. the day before they post how many sites will be available for the next morning. We went on down to Moab, had lunch at the Moab Brewery (Yay! Utah has brew pubs.) and headed to the KOA with full hookups and no 7:00 a.m. line-up. It’s not far from the park, and we got back to the park in time to drive part of the park drive, stop at the Moab Fault overlook and the Park Avenue Trailhead. We hiked this trail to the courthouse Towers Viewpoint and back. On the way out of the park, we noted that there would be just a few sites available in the morning—we decided to re-up at KOA for 3 more nights.

Three Gossips, Park Avenue Trail

The next day was a really full one. We drove back to the park and started driving the park road, stopping at all of the overlooks on the way to a ranger-led hike in the Windows area. At the Windows, we saw several arches and learned about park geology and plants. We also stopped at the La Sal Mountain viewpoint, hiked to Double Arch, went to the Garden of Eden, Ham Rock, Panorama Point, and Wolf Ranch, where the trailhead for Delicate Arch is located. We hiked up to Delicate Arch (3-mile round trip with 480 feet of elevation gain), which is featured on the new Utah license plates. It’s a pretty strenuous hike across slickrock, but the views at the top are great. You can “walk” right up to and through Delicate Arch, looking down into the valley below. We also went down below to the two viewpoints for Delicate Arch, both of which also involved hikes, but not quite so long or strenuous. We went to Salt Valley overlook, and hiked to Sand Dune Arch, Broken Arch, and Skyline Arch (whew). On the way back to camp, we stopped and signed up for a jet boat tour of the Colorado River for the next morning, then had dinner at Pasta Jay’s, recommended by the jet boat lady. Very good.

North and South Windows

Double Arch

Delicate Arch

The next day, we got up early to get down to the river (between camp and the park) and get on the boat. It was really cold, and everyone (even the macho guys) wrapped up in the blankets that Captain Rory provided. Captain Rory had arctic gear on and was still hunkered down as we zoomed along at about 40 mph, skimming over the relatively shallow river. We went down river about 32 miles and back. This took us down to below Dead Horse Point, which is in a state park just outside of the northern district of Canyonlands National Park. We stopped and floated several times while Captain Rory explained some things along the river or just talked about life in a small, Utah town. He admitted that he likes to hear himself talk, but he was quite entertaining and informative. We also stopped and got off of the boat a couple of times to see petrified wood, petroglyphs, etc. This was a fun tour, but would be even better in slightly warmer weather.

Red Rock Cliffs, Colorado River

Jug Handle Arch, Colorado River

The boat trip only took about half a day, so we had time for some other adventures. We drove three scenic Utah state highways; 128, 313, and 279 (Potash Road). Highway 313 took us into Dead Horse Point State Park, where we could look down from Dead Horse Point about 1,000 feet to the river where we had just been a few hours before. Each of these highways had their own character and each provided a lot of great scenery, including an amazing collection of “rock art” (petroglyphs) on 279, by the river. On the way back from Dead Horse Point SP, we decided we needed a little more adventure and a shortcut to highway 279, so we took the unpaved “connector” road from 313 to 279. This turned out to be more of an adventure than we bargained for. Always check locally for road conditions for unpaved, unimproved roads before heading out. We found out later that part of this road is known as “Pucker Pass” and with good reason, with several “4x4 challenges” (we were not in a 4x4). Three times, we were sure that we’d have to walk out and get someone to come back to rescue the truck, if they could get a tow truck in there. But we finally made it. We didn’t even get any pictures of the worst parts, because we were concentrating on how to get out of, around, or over them. WOW! It was really fun, after we were safely back on pavement. We treated ourselves to dinner at the Desert Bistro, a really good restaurant.

Will the Truck Fit? Going through Pucker Pass

The next day, we went back to Arches to do some more of the park. There’s a lot to see and do in this little park. We drove the park road some more, stopping at Balanced Rock viewpoint and Petrified Dunes overlooks on the way to catch our pre-paid, ranger-led tour of Fiery (sic) Furnace. One must have a ranger guide for this section of the park, or have experience and get a special permit to go alone. We never remembered to ask why they spell “Fiery” that way.

Firey Furnace

Butt Scooting through Firey Furnace

This was taking us longer than we expected, so the next day, we re-upped at KOA for another two nights and headed back into the park. This time, we hiked Devil’s Garden for a total of 8.36 miles, seeing at least 9 arches—Tunnel, Pine Tree, Landscape, Partition, Navajo, Black, Double-O, Shadow Box, and Private. The next day, we drove over to Canyonlands National Park, because it’s not too far from our KOA in Moab, but we’ll tell you about in our next installment.

Landscape Arch

Navajo Arch

Double O Arch

Submarine Fin (we made up this name) in Devil's Garden

On our last day in Arches, we drove the park road out to another dirt road (checked with the VC as to road conditions) and drove out about 8 miles through Salt Valley to the Tower Arch trailhead in the Klondike Bluffs. Our ranger guide for the Fiery Furnace hike said that Tower Arch was her favorite, so we had to have a look, and it was only about 3 ½ miles of moderately difficult trail. Very nice. We finished this day with boring utility items but were ready to tackle the districts of Canyonlands next.

Tower Arch