After leaving Silverthorne, CO., we headed directly to Arches National Park in Utah. We got there later in the afternoon, and already it was very cold. Probably down into the low 40s.
Reuniting with landscape here was a most beautiful thing. It's hard to describe, but just imagine being put on another planet. The rocks, the sky, the plants and everything, is so, so different then where I call home now.
We got set up and settled in for a cozy night in our wonderful roof-top tent. In the morning we found ice on the dog water bowl hahaha but going to sleep when it's cold and waking up when it's cold is a less than pleasurable experience to put it nicely. But the rising sun, at about 7 a.m., quickly heated the area to a comfortable 50 or so degrees.
The campground (at the end of the park) is well laid out with concrete slabs and nice picnic table and fire pits. There are also bathrooms nearby with good drinking water. The place was full! Seems everyone is crazy like us camping when it's early November.
We found some trails around the campground, which was great, as we can't move the car once the tent to set up...not really... So our first morning here we packed up some water and snacks and hit the trailhead to go visit Tapestry Arch, and Broken Arch, which I had never seen before. There is so much to see here at the park, unless you have two weeks to see it all you miss a lot.
Tapestry Arch was absolutely amazing! The arch formed in front of another rock face so if you looked at the arch straight on the rock behind made a sort of "tapestry". The hiking was relatively easy, and we headed back to the trail fork to go see Broken Arch. This was just as amazing as any other arch, but you could walk up to this one, and through it. Each arch as its own distinct features that we discovered after carefully observing each one.
We encountered a woman heading back to the campground who was quite panicked for some reason, but assured us that the trail was fairly easy-going and looped around back to the main trail. Seems she lost her way getting out and kept calling to us across the canyon to confirm that she was on the right track. Later we discovered her information was not exactly spot on as we tried to find the trail she was talking about, and kept getting lost. Slot canyons here are very confusing and a lot of people who get lost, and did not bring enough water, die from exposure.
We were walking towards what we thought was the main trail and came to a cliff, so we backtracked around and went down, only to find another cliff we backtracked and went down several more times after this, and when I noticed that we were nearing the valley floor. We got scared, and decided to completely backtrack all the way to Broken Arch, which was about a mile on a fairly aggressive hiking path.
We would be doing fine following human footprints, but they would turn into animal footprints, and then completely disappear leaving us quite stumped. Eventually, we found the right path and safely made our way out. Of course, the sights along the way were spectacular, but we were quite focused on finding our way out, as we didn't want to die of thirst and exposure. Bernie's main concern that we were going to freeze to death.
What should have been a 3 hour hike wound up being more like a 5 hour hike, and by the time we got back to our campsite we were both very tired. After a quick nap and a cup of coffee, I ran Gertie on my bike up the road for her evening exercise. She absolutely loves this part of her day and it makes me happy to be able to provide her with a great workout which she needs or she goes completely stir crazy! After that, I decided to do some exploring on my own as I spotted an arch we had not seen, that was very close to our campsite. This was Skyline Arch. I was told it's very short walk from where I was. I walked to the bottom of the campground and followed the path through Juniper Gorge where a group campsite location was. The path opened into a flat area about a quarter mile square and I walked across it to get the most beautiful sunset view of the Skyline Arch ever! The woman I met who told me how to get to this Arch, whose name was Cecily, was there camping with her husband from Seattle. The lavished attention on Gertie when they visited us and explained that they needed some dog love because there's was at home.
It then started to get very cold, and we begin preparations for the evening portion of our day. This involved setting up, and food items and food preparation items set out strategically, as to be able to not have to fuss much in the dark making dinner. I have been making some camp-style food, in that I would make a pot of rice, (we found a really nice blend of wild and brown rices) sauté some onions, diced up lunch meat, and then scramble in an egg. I then mixed in the rice, grated some cheese on top, sprinkle with some "Adobo" seasoning from Goya. It was quick, easy, and delicious!
We then settled into bed, and I read aloud from the book we've been reading, The Dogs of Bedlam Farm. It's a well-written book and includes Border Collies! What more could you want? hee hee.
The next morning, I was up early (before the sunrise) to walk the dog, and make some coffee. The temp was in the teens, and there was dog ice on the dog water bowl. I later found out it had gotten down to about 15 degrees. As I greeted the rising sun with a stretch and verbal salutation of joy, I noticed our neighbors, Cecily and Duncan, heading out to a small lookout point nearby, to take photographs of the rising sun. I went out to greet them, and had a lovely chat. We became quick friends. We will definitely be staying in touch with these young and beautiful people, and hope to host them next year at our yurt in Truro.
After two nights in the magical Canyonlands of Utah, we broke camp and were off for our next adventure, the Grand Canyon! Bernie expressed a desire to see it as he had always heard about it but again never dreamed he would see it.
Bernie commented on our experience at Arches, and said the things that stood out the most to him were, the contrast in the colors of the rock, the beautiful ravens that complemented these wild sites, and the lushness of the desert, in particular the beautiful juniper trees. He said it was like being injected into a land that he had always wanted to see but never dreamed he would. I told him that I enjoyed making his dreams come true hahaha.
Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for our next blog post from the Grand Canyon in Arizona!
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PHOTOS FROM ARCHES NATIONAL PARK
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