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Day 1
In my first full day in Moab I drove just a few miles north of town to Arches National Park. There they have a collection of natural rock arches that have formed over many years through erosion... blah blah blah. During my day in the park I drove around it, stopping at several points to get out and do a little hike. That is because the place is so large it can be several miles between one point of interest and another. The first two hikes were less than a mile each, taking me to the Windows and Double Arch. The next one was a little longer at three miles roundtrip and, as the hiking guide said, with no shade! I had planned ahead and packed a few litres of water for the day. And it was just as well because temperatures hit 100 degrees! I quickly learned that it was best to carry all my water with me rather than just taking what I needed for one hike and leaving the rest in the car, because that way I had some really warm water waiting for me in the car when I got back. Instead it only got luke-warm in my bag.
During the three mile hike up to Delicate Arch, which is the most spectacular arch because it stands alone in a kind of depression in the rock, I met two nice Americans - Fred and Brittany - who had come over from Pennsylvania to do a little touring. I met them because, coming over a ridge, I spotted some precious shade and they were sat there in it. I was going to ask them if there was room for me when Fred beckoned me to join them. We continued together all the way up to the arch and back down to our cars. They were leaving after that but I had one more hike I wanted to do.
And I'm glad I did it because the Landscape Arch was my absolute favourite. It is so wide and the top of it looks to thin and precarious and the hillside beneath it is so green. It just looks perfect. I have tried in these parks to take photos that capture how it looks and what it feels like to be there. I just don't think that is possible. I even tried video of panoramas. I'll put select pictures on my blog that give you an idea of the place but I don't think any of them do the places justice at all!
In the evening I drove up and down Moab looking for a place to eat and chose a nice looking Italian restaurant that had a bar for me to sit at. I got talking to the woman working the bar and she gave me control of the TV remote but I couldn't find anything good on. The food and beer were good. She had recommended a dish to me but I had gone with something else so I told her I'd be back tomorrow to try that one out.
Day 2
With the nearest park under my belt it was time to strike out further and go to Canyonlands National Park. From reading my guide book I thought the Island In The Sky section sounded the most immediately appealing. The thing I should say about this park is that it is based around the merging of the Colorado and Green rivers, which come together in a Y-shape and there are no river crossings so the park is split into north, west and east sections. I got in my car and headed south to the turning to Canyonlands. That was already a good 40 miles. Then a sign said it was 35 miles to the park from there. I was really starting to understand the size of this place. I drove on in, stopping at the road work section where they were redoing the road surface for an escort car.
It took me 90 minutes from hostel to park entrance and when I got there I found out I was at the Needles section. I was so annoyed with myself for not checking the route before setting off. But I resolved to find out what there was to see in this section of the park and have a good time anyway. In the visitors centre one of the rangers recommended a seven mile roundtrip hike to me. It sounded good so I drove on down the road to the trailhead. That involved leaving the main road and following a three mile rough road. It was Monument Valley all over again, except this rough road was a little more even.
I set off on my hike just as the sun was at its highest. And when I say that I mean it was almost literally overhead, maybe ten degrees off being straight up. So there is no shade unless you find an overhanging rock. The worst of the uphill was right at the start and once that was out of the way I felt a little better because I had found an overhanging rock to cool off under for a few minutes. They aren't joking when they say you should carry a gallon (four litres) of water per person per day and drink it!
The scenery was amazing. Red rocks all around with white banding in places. This section is called the Needles because the rocks have eroded into needle-like columns in places. A couple of times during the hike I passed through these needles. There was another big up and down section that the ranger had failed to mention to me but the payoff was worth it. I came up a ridge and through a gap in some rocks and there before me was Chesler Park, the target of my hike. It was so beautiful to see. I felt like those little dinosaurs at the end of the movie The Land Before Time when they finally find the valley.
I paused to enjoy the view and take a photo or two and then had to make a decision whether to do a little extra or turn back now. I still felt energetic so I carried on. This section remained flat so I was happy. At one point I had stopped on a large rockflat to drink some water and I could hear a popping sound around me. I looked and saw nothing. I hoped I wasn't going mad or that the blood vessels in my ears were giving into the strain. But then I noticed some raindrops falling on the rock. I had been monitoring a stormfront for the entire walk. I thought it was a few miles off and passing me but it looked like it might be coming in to get me. I had been hearing thunder too.
The rain didn't get any worse so I continued onwards looking for shelter in case I needed it. I wasn't going to stay dry on top of an exposed rock! The rain stopped and I came up to another gap in some rocks. Going through that was nice because it funneled the breeze into a cooling wind. And when I emerged on the other side this new place was even more beautiful than the last place. I sat on a rock for 15 minutes just looking at it. I decided it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. And it was so peaceful too. I was at least 40 miles from any main road, over three miles from the parking lot and I'd only seen at most five people so far - quite a change from Arches with people everywhere.
The timing for my leaving there could not have been better. As I came back through the rock gap it started raining again. As the next mile or so was fairly open land I waited a minute to see what the weather was going to do before proceeding. I didn't have to wait long. I could actually hear the rain front coming towards me before it reached. I darted back into the rock gap as the deluge struck. I scrambled slightly up the rockface to a cubby hole where I hid and watched the rain. It was coming down in buckets and I could see the lightning through the gap. The thunder was tremendous and because I was in an area of many canyons it echoed and boomed all around. If you like storms that would have been a good place to be. You can see from my photos the difference between what it looked like as it was raining and how it looked after the rain stopped - the whole far side of the canyon disappeared from view during the rain.
It passed after fifteen minutes or so and I left my secure location and headed down the trail. Suddenly where there had previously been bare rocks and dry streambeds there were rockpools and the streams were starting to flow lightly again. I could hear tiny waterfalls as the rain ran off the rocks into the streams. I came across puddles that were over an inch deep, and the whole place smelled of pine. I passed three people that had been caught out in the rain. They looked a bit soaked but their spirits were still high. Partway back down the trail their footprints stopped (presumably at the point they had sheltered, poorly, under some trees) and I could no longer follow the trail that way because the rain had pounded up the sand and removed all traces. But all trails are well marked with cairns so I was okay.
I was glad to be back at the car. The temperature was reading 94 degrees, so at least it was cooler than Arches had been but, unlike Arches, I had been continuously outside for four hours, rather than getting in and out of the car every so often. At that point I was very glad I had come to the wrong part of the park because the hike had been great.
As I left the park I stopped at a little privately owned store just outside the park borders. I went in to get an ice cold Coke - my reward to myself. It was either there or drive the 70 miles back to Moab first and I wanted one now! The woman inside had lived there for twenty years and she was a bit crazy so I believed her. She said that they had had three quarters of an inch of rain in one hour and the road outside her store had turned into a river for a while. The annual rainfall is seven inches so it's a big deal! She said it's rare to see what she assumed I saw - waterfalls coming off the rocks. I hated to correct her and say that I must have been on the edge of the storm and I had only seen tiny waterfalls that would have been put to shame by a kitchen tap.
In the evening I did return to the Italian restaurant from the previous day and the barmaid recognised me, ordered my meal for me and immediately gave me control of the second TV. I found Comedy Central this time and was as happy as Larry. And he was having a good day! It got even better when a couple at the other end of the bar started talking to me and they paid for my second beer. I think I overtook Larry at that point.
That reminds me to tell you that Utah is very affected by being a Mormon state. I forget what I read but the majority of the population are Mormon and the state government is Mormon controlled. This means the laws can be very different to other states. For example the draught and bottled beer here is only 3.2% alcohol. Although the barmaid said she did have some 6% bottles. And depending what type of license an establishment has determines what rules there are. In this restaurant, although I was sat at the bar, if I ordered a drink the barmaid had to walk around the bar to my side and put it down in front of me. If she handed it across the bar they could lose their license! Also, in this place, if you wanted alcohol you had to order some food too. That meant the couple had to order the 99 cents side of garlic bread in order to have their drinks. It seems to me that if we implemented the same thing in Britain our binge drinking culture would disappear overnight.
Be sure to check out the two photo albums and two videos that go with this blog entry. There's a lot of visual media attached to this part of my trip!
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