Saturday October 23, 2010

We had a good night's sleep in a recently updated Best Western in downtown Moab. We went to a little cafe called the "Love Muffin" for breakfast. The food was great and we met some people who gave us some tips on some good hiking in Arches National Park. The one thing we did notice was how busy this little town was. Apparently this is peak mountain biking season as the temperatures are usually in the 60's and the area has some of the best trails in the USA.


The park is a huge red sandstone area with mesas and many naturally formed stone "arches".

We started off with a hike to "Landscape Arch" shown below.


There was a more challenging trail leading to a few more arches but the trail proved to be a bit too challenging with a climb up a fairly steep rock spine for about 150 ft. (Yes, that is a person standing on top and others scaling the rock spine in the middle of the photo)


Chris bailed out so we decided to try the reverse loop of the trail, only to be stymied by a 3 foot deep pool of water left over from yesterday's rain. Some people decided to scramble on the rock slopes or wade through the pool. I wasn't about to attempt the "fireman rescue carry" with backpacks, cameras etc.


We did a few shorter trails to view some other arches and overlooks.

This is us on one of the "primitive" hiking trails.


The most famous arch in the park is the "Delicate Arch" which requires a 3.5 mile round trip to view it up close. This entailed a fairly challenging climb up a 1/2 mile slickrock slope and culminating in a walk along a ledge with a 1000 ft sheer drop off. Chris did not like this part but was assisted by a local climber for the last bit. Obviously she didn't trust my offer of assistance.

The view of the arch was terrific although given it was the weekend, there were quite a few other tourists cluttering up the photos.


There were many other great views in the park and a day only scratched the surface.


We figured we had hiked around 8 miles in total so retired to our hotel at around 6pm. After a refreshing shower, we walked down the street to "McStiff's" for a cold one and some supper.