Road trip report to the mighty five: Arches, Canyonlands

October 6, Wednesday, we woke up bright and early to spend a day at the Arches National Park.

Our hotel was a 10 minute drive from the park, so we decided to take it easy and left the hotel at around 7. Even at that early hour, there was a long line at the entrance and it took us 30 minutes to finally enter the park. The drive into the park is a series of switchbacks, but the view from them is beautiful.

It is an 18 mile scenic drive into the park along all the viewpoints and hikes. We stopped frequently and took in the sights. All the rock formations are named, and that makes it more interesting.

The Gossips

We hiked to the balanced rock and the north and south windows. These were all paved hikes and fairly easy, less than a mile round trip.

Balanced Rock

We then did the hike to the world famous Delicate arch. This is considered a difficult hike because first, its a steady climb to an area of slick rock, and then its along a narrow path to the slick rock bowl where the delicate arch is standing.

Delicate Arch

One can appreciate the ways in which people are so different, and yet so similar, and the assumptions we make about them. I saw young, seemingly fit people walk slower than me. I saw older women, with hiking poles and canes reach the end of the hike and walk unto the delicate arch with no fear.

I had reached the end of the hike but did not want to cross onto the arch, one has to walk across the rim of a bowl to reach there. After watching all these ladies do it, and some actually ran across the rim, I gathered my courage and walked gingerly across. In hindsight, it wasn’t hard. I would do it again.

We then drove along till we reached the Landscape arch trail. It’s a short 1.5 mile hike. We did it, but we were tired out by now. So it was a short stay at the arch and then we drove back to the hotel. Someday I would like to return to do the Devil’s Garden Primitive loop hike. Its a 7.2 mile round trip hike and takes 3-4 hours to do.

We had pizza and pasta at a diner, topped it with ice cream from Crystal’s Cakes and Cones.

Then we decided to do our laundry. That was an adventure in itself. I haven’t used the laundromat in 20 years, so I forgot about the coins. Luckily, my car had some change, and after we bought the detergent from the local market, we put the clothes in the washer. I have stopped keeping cash on me so I had to run back to the hotel to get cash for the coins for the dryer. It’s a good thing the town is small and everything is close by. Lesson learnt, if you plan to do laundry, plan to keep detergent, coins and cash with you.

The next day, October 7, Thursday, we drove 45 minutes to Canyonlands National Park. We did the Mesa Arch hike. It was easy and beautiful. The early morning hours, the sunlight through the arch, the canyon below, all made a pretty picture.

We then did a hike to the Grand View Point. This was along the rim of the canyon. We could make out the trails of the harder hikes going down into the canyon, and the trails which require 4WD to explore the canyon.

Look at the narrow path along the canyon wall. In the olden days, the was used to take sheep and goats into the canyon floor to graze.

We then drove to Dead Horse Point State Park.

The story behind the name from the Utah state parks website: ‘According to one legend, around the turn of the century, the point was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa top. Cowboys rounded up these horses, herded them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point. The neck, which is only 30-yards-wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush. This created a natural corral surrounded by precipitous cliffs straight down on all sides, affording no escape. Cowboys then chose the horses they wanted and let the culls or broomtails go free. One time, for some unknown reason, horses were left corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.’

The hike was an unpaved trail marked with cairns. It was interesting to see the desert plants and from time to time look down into the canyon. Once we reached the overlook with the green Colorado river meandering along the canyon, the story about the horses became more real.

Cairns-to mark the trails.

We did a couple of short hikes to get a different view into the canyon and then called it a day.

This is how the rock formations look, layers and layers of red sandstone, forming beautiful shapes with wind and water erosion.

The drive into and out of the state park is long, and it seemed as if we were the only ones on the road. But at every viewpoint it was crowded and sometimes we had to wait for a parking spot.

For dinner, we had sandwiches from a food truck. Moab has, on its Main Street, an area with 8-10 food trucks. The food was really good, fresh and flavorful.

This evening we packed up to get an early start to the next destination. Page, Arizona. This would be on our way back home.