Once we had left Kari & Andy’s ranch near Douglas, Wyoming we have a journey of about 570 miles to our next destination at Arches National Park. Having stopped overnight outside of Denver, roughly midway, we continue our journey, always considering where can we get a children’s paddle board? Dammed elusive thing it is proving!
The journey towards Arches is through some terrific landscape of canyons and badlands. Badlands are arid areas where rivers and the wind have cut through the surface and the subsoil and rock remains bare of regrowing. But they show all different colours of the sedimentary rick strata and have a beauty in their own right.
We arrive at a deserted campsite in the desert, tucked behind low hills. Yet it has an order about it, pit toilets, dumpsters and numbered sites. This is a typical BLM (Bureau of Land Management) campsite which are run on a low cost and honesty basis - the fees being put back into maintaining the campsite and basic amenities.
The site is silent and peaceful. Dark skies and wonderful stars and the occasional bat for company.
We are up reasonably early and head into Arches National Park. The park is basically a no-through road which takes you deep into the park to the various sights. Even the entrance drive is spectacular - a switchblade (hairpin curve) up the side of a high cliff which then deposits you at the level of the rest of the park.
We stop at the first trail point and walk down into Park Avenue, which is surrounded by stunning high towers and cliffs (hence the name) and leads down towards the Courthouse Towers. Even early in the day the temperatures are climbing and the local wildlife is out enjoying the heat.
We spot ‘Common Side Blotched lizards’ including a teeny one and a ‘Western Whiptail lizard’ which is a type of spiny lizard. We also spot a ‘’Canyon Wren’. As for the cliffs - breathtaking, colourful, sheer, and all the time we are walking dry river beds showing how they are formed by erosion.
We move further into the park going past the ‘Balanced Rock’ to explore the ‘Windows’ arches. The park itself has over two thousand documented arches and these are the most visited and easily explored.
We clamber through them, around them, behind them and enjoy a short trail back towards Wendy and then get sidetracked towards ‘Double Arch’ where a young couple are in a side arch singing with the natural acoustics projecting their voices far and wide!
Moving onwards we go to the furthest end of the park to take a walk and see "landscape" arch which is a huge thin bridge you used to be able to walk under, due to a massive lump falling off and nearly squishing some torusists a few years ago you can't get close to it anymore.
We then head to see ‘Delicate Arch’ which features on the Utah car number plate, amongst other things. But with the high temperatures, 32 deg C, and a long walk to the arch, we decide to just go to the lower and upper viewpoints and admire from about a mile. And it is beautiful and delicate even from an distance.
What a sensible decision that was to not walk the trail. We had been watching the rain clouds gather in the distance and as we drive away from Delicate Arch then suddenly they are on us and the heavens open up! The heat rapidly drops and we get to see a rare natural event, water cascading down a multitude of cliffs, river beds suddenly flooding, water streaming everywhere and then narrowing down into streams and spilling over the road.
We even saw the last of the water cascading down into Park Avenue and as quickly as it started it had finished. Just left were a few puddles at the Visitors Centre on the way out.
We head into the local town of Moab and their aquatic centre (swimming pool) and enjoy a lazy swim and glorious hot showers. Just nearby is ‘The Broken Oar’ restaurant which provides us with Tacos and burgers with Alex’s served in a Frisbee!
We head to another BLM campsite outside Moab on the way to Canyonlands National Park. We are nearly alone except for two other campers at opposite ends of the campsite. There are beautiful views out over canyons and the interspersing desert lands and a storm in the distance provides a lightning show but is too far away to capture on camera - though we tried!
After a cool night, much appreciated after yesterdays heat, we wake up after a lie in to spectacular desert views as we are on the edge of a ‘hill’. Breakfast and domestic chores completed we head off to Canyonlands National Park just down the road. Similar to Arches the park is served by a single road which you travel down and up.
The first stop is at Shafer Canyon overlook. And what an overlook. Out onto a wedge of rock looking down about 1,000 feet to the canyon floor below! Then the canyon and Colorado river just extend for miles into the distance, this is an impassable natural barrier, you would think. But looking down you can actually make out a trail!
Our nature spotting continues with Alex notching up three Western Whiptail lizards and three baby Common Splotched lizards.
We move on to the Mesa arch which frames stunning views of the Colorado plateau with the buttes, spires, mesas and side canyons that this park is helping preserve.
We see more of that trail from here. What was it for? Uranium mining and also for sheep/goat herding. And you can still drive down the canyon wall and do about 60 miles off-roaming and drive the trail, special licence required plus a 4x4 and a good head for heights! The formation of the park put paid to the mining activity after much corporate resistance. National Parks in the USA help protect vast areas from over exploitation!
Moving on we visit an upheaval dome and associated big crater. Scientific debate has been torn between a salt dome uprising or a meteor impact, with the latter having favour. Whatever caused it has provided a beautiful opening in the earth with strands of strata twisted and exposed in 30 deg heat.
Our final stop at the end of the road is the Green River overlook, looking down over 1,300 feet and across 20 miles and carved out by the meeting of the Colorado and Green rivers. And that massive gulf is why the park road only goes this far!
As we return to our campsite we decide to take a detour into the adjacent Dead Horse Point State Park - the sunsets there are supposed to be great and it turns out stunning! Then it’s back to the campsite with a little overnight rain in the desert.
We had planned an early morning rise to capture the sunrise at Dead Horse Point but the sound of falling rain persuaded us that remaining in bed is a better option! Getting up at a more sensible time we head back to the Canyonlands visitor centre to get a geology book and end up enveloped in cloud rising up out of the canyons. Very ethereal walking through cloud on the edge of a canyon.
Then it’s on to the next National Park - Capitol Reef.
Guy
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