Arches 2

As much as we had just spent most of a day hiking, getting in about 7 miles or more, when we woke up the next morning we were ready for more. We still wanted to see one of the most famous ones, called the Landscape Arch, it's a very long, slightly arching arch. It's actually 100 yards long. But it was in the section of the park furthest from the entry. So we had a long drive.

On the way into the park we spotted a hawk soaring around, no doubt hunting for some food. We wanted to stop at the visitor's center and check out info on an area called the Fiery Furnace, a place I'd seen on the web but hiking it was a little more involved. I got some great shots of the hawk and then we found out that we could do the Fiery Furnace but it takes about 2 - 3 hours to do and the guided tour starts at 1. We wanted to leave the area before that so we opted out on that idea.

As we headed out we enjoyed reviewing what we'd seen the day before and refrained from stopping too much for more pictures. We finally passed the road that went off to Delicate Arch and were then in fresh territory.

First we came to the Fiery Furnace area and I wanted to just step inside the maze of canyons 10 feet or so, just enough to get a few shots but there was a $150 fine for entering without a permit. So we moved on and came to a spot where we got to see something similar. Inside these little narrow canyons was an arch called "Sand Dune Arch" which was just beautiful but the wind was whistling right through that canyon and blowing sand ferociously! Then we headed out for the next one called "Broken Arch," across the desert in the blowing sand .8 of a mile. We got there and explored as usual then headed out the back side to follow the loop. We had gone quite a while in the blowing sand, walking on sand and were beginning to wonder what was up, this trail was only supposed to be .8 mile long. It was, but not the loop. The loop was more like 2 miles. but it took us through some interesting slot canyons and we thoroughly enjoyed it once we got out of the blowing wind and soft sand.

We finally headed out to the Devil's Garden area to see the Landscape arch. First we stopped for a real short jaunt to the base off the Skyline arch. THEN on to the other stuff. The trail was being very heavily groomed by lots of young strong people, using rakes, shovels, a soil packing machine and lots of boulders. The arch was interesting but not the best in my opinion. I still preferred the Delicate Arch. We finally felt fulfilled.

We headed back through Moab to go down to the next town near the turnoff to our next highway, Blanding. It was difficult to find a hotel with wifi but we did finally. It was a bit of a dive but it was packed, no doubt for the wifi. But once unpacked we found that the wifi they offered wasn't set up right and we actually ended up using some neighbor's wifi instead, it was unsecured and we could connect.

Next stop - Hanksville?