Abbey's Road

On Thursday I went to Arches National Park just outside of Moab. As usual in the NPs, Abbey couldn’t go on the trails so she had to be satisfied with getting out once in a while in the parking lots. The trails at Arches aren’t all that long so it wasn’t too bad for her. The park and trails were very crowded, but it was still worth it to be able to see a lot of the natural arches. This area has the largest concentration of them in the world. In order below are: Landscape Arch, Wall Arch, Partition Arch, Double O Arch (2x), Delicate Arch, South Window seen through Turret Arch, and, of course, the Aching Arch.

The Arches:

Friday morning we left Moab and headed for the Needles District of Canyonlands NP. I was able to get a spot in the campground which was one of the nicer ones I have seen. It didn’t have a lot of facilities, but the sites had tons of space between them and they were backed up to a big sandstone mound. The views were also fabulous from the campsite. Friday I managed to get in a pretty nice hike, but I saved a real long one for Saturday. The only problem was that I couldn’t drive my RV down to the trailhead for Saturday’s hike. So, I figured, no problem. I’ll ride my bike down the dirt road to the trailhead. Well, my legs were pretty tired by the time I reached the trailhead as it was longer than I expected. And I hadn’t even started the hike yet. Well, I managed the hike OK anyways. The middle part of the hike was kind of boring, but at the end you had to climb out of this canyon and you didn’t see the final destination, Druid Arch, until you were almost at the very end. It was one of the cooler arches I’ve seen as well.
As if that wasn’t enough I took a detour on the way back through an area called Chesler Park which takes you in amongst the Needles themselves. All in all it was a really cool hike with some fun scrambling up the rocks and gorgeous views in every direction. On the way down from Chesler Park I saw a woman’s watch on the trail. I figured I might run into someone at the trailhead who had lost a watch, but, more likely, I would take it to the Visitor Center and leave it there. When I got back down I was unlocking my bike and dreading the long ride up (did I mention that it was mostly downhill and a very rough road on the way down?) when a woman asked me if I wanted a ride up with her and her husband in their pickup truck. I guess she was thinking the same thing about that ride as I was and was feeling sorry for me. She said her husband was just up the hill a ways and that she had a young baby who was getting restless so they wouldn’t be long. I almost said I’ll start out and if you pass me you can stop and pick me up. But then I thought, “Are you crazy? It’s a free ride up that nasty, long hill.” So I accepted. I ended up waiting about 20 minutes for her husband but in the meantime a group of hikers came back to their car and I overheard one of the women saying she couldn’t find her watch. It turned out the watch I found was hers. She was quite surprised but very grateful. So I was happy I accepted the other woman’s offer of a ride in more ways than one. And when we got to the top of the dirt road I was really happy because I didn’t remember it being that long.

Sunrise from Camp
Sunset from Camp
Invasion of the Cairns
Newspaper Rock (or Primitive Graffiti)

On Sunday I took it much easier, though I did take another bike ride. This time it was mostly on a paved road and mostly flat. I’m learning that you use different muscles to bike than you do to hike. I’m a little worried about mountain biking when my cousin, Tommy, comes out this week. Luck for me, he said he’s not in very good shape right now so I just might survive. Monday morning we headed back to Moab to stock up again, find a new campground and get ready for Tommy’s arrival. Hopefully, I’ll make it through the rest of the week all in one piece.