Spring 2022 - The Arches National Park - the wedding anniversary trip!

Day 7 We are on our way back to Oregon, retracing the highways that led us here, but everything is reversed. We arrived in Moab five days ago in the dark, today we left in the early morning. Clouds and cold winds accompanied us on our journey east, today we head back beneath calm blue skies and warmer temperatures. On our way north out of Moab a lone antelope sentinel standing in the sagebrush beneath a rocky canyon wall seemed to confirm the change. We took a midday stop in Salt Lake, now free of snow flurries, for lunch. The mountains that surround the area were now visible to their peaks, fresh white from the snowstorm earlier in the week and dazzling against the blue sky. Our long awaited photo op at Temple Square was a bust as the Temple of the Latter Day Saints was encased in scaffolding. Still we found downtown Salt Lake another clean, vibrant, and inviting pedestrian friendly urban space that would be fun to explore some day. Later in the afternoon we stopped at “The Middle o...

Day 6 Today we finally turned south to investigate one of the three Canyonlands regions - The Needles. Along the way we stopped to look up at yet one more named arch, Wilson Arch, an easily photographed roadside attraction,before continuing down Hwy 191 to the 211 turn off that would lead to The Needles entrance of Canyonlands National Park. Initially not planning to stop until we entered the park, we were intrigued by a pull off called Newspaper Rock, and then sold when we read the byline: “petroglyphs”. Just a few yards from the parking area was a darkened rock face covered with inscribed figures and symbols covering two thousand years of human history. There were depictions of herds of deer, mountain goats, bow hunters, footprints that looked like bear paws and others that looked like human feet - only with six toes. Some appeared timeless, while images of bow hunters riding horses couldn’t be more than a few centuries old. We later learned that this particular unassuming site h...

Day 5 Three times a charm! This morning we finally arrived early enough to be let into the park - though we were one of the last handful of vehicles to make the cut! The plan was to drive to the end of the park at the Devils Garden Trailhead and hike to some of the nearer arches their and then work our way back through the park to explore whatever we had missed the previous day. So much for plans. Our first “distraction” after passing the sites we had already visited yesterday, was the Fiery Furnace viewpoint. How could we pass up this parade of red rock “fins” jutting above the mesa. Next, we decided to enjoy the short hike to Sand Dune Arch and the unbroken Broken Arch. This hike to Broken Arch was especially noteworthy as it began with a walk across the open desert before reaching and paralleling the rock walls and formations from which Broken Arch arose. This intimacy with the landscape only served to enhance our appreciation of the destination arch. These initial explorations ...

Day 4 We did NOT sleep in! but AGAIN by the time we had finished breakfast and our preparations for the day, Arches National Park had reached capacity and was not allowing any more vehicles to enter! “Try again in 3-5 hours” teased the sign once more! No worries. There are endless places to explore here beyond the artificial boundaries of parks. We settled on Hwy 279 Scenic Byway, which followed the Colorado River in the opposite direction of our previous day and promised petroglyphs, dinosaur tracks, and a state park intriguingly named “Dead Horse Point”. All in, we were off. The road and the river ran between rock walls - steep on our left, more rounded on the other side of the river to our right. After passing a bevy of rock climbers operating from the shoulder just barely out of the roadway, we spotted an innocuous sign that simply stated “Petroglyphs”. We pulled to the side of the road and spent the next half hour studying and trying to decipher the depictions of humanoids, anim...

Day 3 We slept in! which was necessary and good, but by the time we had finished breakfast and our preparations for the day, Arches National Park had reached capacity and was not allowing any more vehicles to enter. “Try again in 3-5 hours” read the sign. Undeterred, and after a brief exploration of a local park at the North end of Moab that included a pedestrian bridge across what we later discovered was the Colorado River, we chose to begin our explorations on the highway that paralleled the green river. The blue dome of the sky evidenced our distancing of the endless grays that had accompanied the first two days of our journey. But while we had left the rain, sleet and flurries behind, the surrounding peaks bore evidence of recent snowfall. Red rocks. Red against the blue sky rocks. Layered Rocks. Sculpted and shaped by water, ice and wind rocks. Tumbled debris slopes of rocks. The landscape was deceivingly simple. Sandstone, blue sky, river water, and juniper. But from such a m...

Day 1 Our road trip began as most do: taking care of last minute errands and purchases before finally hitting the road. It was drizzling outside as we pulled into the Fred Meyer to purchase some dry ice for the cooler. As Joe chatted with the store clerk and revealed the purpose for the purchase the clerk joked “I hope you take the rain with you.” Turned out not to be such a jest afterall..... On the first part of the journey we traveled through the familiar as we headed west along highway 84 through the great canyon of the Columbia River Gorge. Low clouds draped the cliff tops and occasional cascades of white water ran down the dark cliffs where evergreens clung to the rocks, silhouetted with wisps of mist. A beautiful if not unfamiliar terrain to start our two day drive to Moab, Utah. Eventually we left the high cliffs of the gorge behind for the more rolling terrain of the Columbia Plateau. Yet here too outcrops of dark rock broke through the green hills as the highway took us eas...