Arches!

Wednesday, December 28, 2016 – Moab, UT and Arches National Park

My day started with a five-mile run around Moab. I’ve written before about how much I love an early morning run in a new city or town, and Moab was no exception. Moab is not very big, so five miles took me through the center of town to the outskirts and back. It was a beautiful brisk morning and, as usual, I returned just as everyone else was starting to get up.

We grabbed breakfast at the Moab Diner, a typical heartly diner breakfast, then set out for Arches National Park. On our way I looked down at the gas gauge on the car and it had 1/8 of a tank. I said “that ought to be enough, right?” and I got stunned silence from the rest of the family. I don’t like for my car to get under ¼ tank under most normal circumstances, and when heading out to the middle of a large national park in the middle of a desert, I would normally want a full tank. I got a “who has inhabited your body?” response from Chrissy, who wisely counseled me to stop and fill up the car. To this day I don’t know what got into me that morning – I think I was just anxious to get in the park and I lost my mind for a few moments.

With a full tank of gas like the Blues Brothers, we headed into Arches. One of the reasons I was anxious to get going was to beat the crowds on the trail to Delicate Arch. Delicate Arch is the famous formation that is on the Utah license plate and many other Utah items. It is a 3 mile round trip hike with some climbing and some narrow ledges with drop-offs, but is still very popular and gets quite crowded. Despite our relatively early start, we still shared the trail with a lot of people and were not able to get any photos of the arch without other people in them. But it was a great hike and a beautiful view.

On the way back to the trailhead, we took the short side trail to visit Ute petroglyph panels and Wolfe Ranch, a one room cabin from the early 1900’s. It was humbling to think about the history of human activity in this harsh, inhospitable place while we worried about how much gas was in the car and where we were going to eat our sandwiches for lunch.

Later in the day we hiked the Landscape Arch trail and the Windows trail to the north and south windows and to Turret Arch. The Landscape Arch trail was largely shaded and was still covered with snow and ice. We broke out the traction devices again and traversed it rather easily. There were some other folks on the trail who were slipping and sliding a bit, but overall it was not bad. And the views were incredible.