Arches National Park

I sprained my left ankle falling off Snoopy's step in the evening and could hardly walk in the morning.  The wind, which had been blowing at about 30 mph had abated and Bob was going to try out the disc golf course in Moab.  I put on my hiking boots, which provided enough support for my ankle to be able to hike up Negro Bill Canyon.  I have no idea where the name came from.  The canyon has a perpetual stream in it and is in shadow quite a bit of the way.  I left about 9 a.m. and walked in the cool canyon bottom along the stream.  It was gorgeous; the sound of the water, the greenery, the rustling of lizards, the color of the rocks.

 The trail crossed and recrossed the stream and made its way along the stream.
















                   Eventually the trail dead-ended in this canyon wall with Morning Glory Arch (the sixth longest arch in the area).  The arch has a small pool below it with poison ivy (there were lots of warnings at the trail head about that) and a small stream coming down a slit in the rock on the left.








 I walked back to Snoopy and waited for Bob.  We headed for Arches, which neither of us had ever seen.  We decided to drive to the end of the road to the area with the longest trails, most arches and a picnic area.  Along the way we passed numerous structures, including the Three Gossips here in this photo.








After eating lunch in a strong wind, we took off on a trail that went past eight arches (we only went as far as the first seven).  This is Pine Tree Arch; there is actually a pine tree in the arch.















 It continues on to Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the area and one of the most photographed spots in Arches.  I must have gotten a spot of dust on my lense as all my photos have this blue dot in them from here on.  Landscape Arch is about 1 mile from the parking lot and is where most people stop and the "paved/gravelled" trail ends.  From here on the trail is designated as primitive and goes along fins and climbs rocks.




 We climbed out of Landscape Arch up a steep slick rock and took two detours on top.  The first was to Partition Arch, which you could see from the Landscape Arch viewpoint.











The second detour was to Navajo Arch which was interesting because it led into this sandy area with some trees growing in it.  If you look carefully you will see Bob behind the smaller tree, which gives a sense of how large this arch is.









The trail then continued out on these fins.  Fins are created when the salt layer dissolves and the rock on top fractures, water gets into the fractures and further erodes them.  Bob described walking on them as being like walking on the top of a freight train; the wind is blowing hard, they are about 8' wide and there are precipitous drop offs on each side.  They are not for people who are afraid of heights (a warning given at the trail head).











Black Arch is seen only at a distance.













Double O Arch, aptly named was the end of our hike.  We opted not to walk down to its base, because we had both already walked about 6 1/2 miles.










Here you can get a sense of the size and distances in Arches.











Here are some more fins.













We drove to the lower viewpoint to look at Delicate Arch.  At this point we opted not to hike out to the base of the arch as it was 3 miles round trip and we had already hiked about 9 1/2 miles.










As we drove back to the entrance we went to the Garden of Eden, which also has a lot of arches.  It is so named because there are all sorts of rocks that look like various animals.










This arch, aptly named Double Arch, is located in the Garden of Eden.












The Garden of Eden also includes this Cove of Caves; arches in the making.












This is called Balanced Rock for obvious reasons.













The view from Balanced Rock towards the Three Gossips, the Organ and the Courthouse.  Arches is a marvelous place which we want to return to.  We ate dinner in Moab at Twisted Sistas', returned to Snoopy to sleep and head towards Lafayette, CO the next day.

Canyonlands, Utah

 We spent the night in Salina, UT at a commercial RV park to recharge the batteries, get a shower and a swim.  As we continued east on I-70 we passed Ghost Rock (so named because it looked like a ghost sticking out of the fog).  I-70 is gorgeous between Salina and Green River, UT.  We decided to camp near Moab, UT and visit Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.  There are numerous BLM campgrounds along the Colorado River and we parked Snoopy at one, ate lunch and then headed towards Canyonlands.  Bob had never been there and I had last visited in March 1974.


 On the way in we passed these two buttes named the Monitor and the Merrimac after the two boats in the Civil War.











We decided to take two hikes, first out to a crater.  It was hot and dry and windy so we were guzzling water.  The trails out here are marked with rock cairns.










Scientists have no idea what caused this crater.  The two hypotheses are that there was a direct meteor strike which caused the sides to collapse or it was the collapse of a salt dome.  This area was covered by inland seas which evaporated and left thick layers of salt which were eventually covered by rock.  The weight of the rock caused the salt to liquify, like a glacier, and move until it hit faults and caused the over-lying rock to crack.  This permitted water to enter the salt layer, dissolve the salt and caused a collapse.  We hiked to the second viewpoint into the crater, which was filled with these greenish piles of rocks.

 Then we headed to a lookout over the canyonlands.  The Green River joins the Colorado River in Canyonlands and then they continue into Cataract Canyon.  This view is of the Green River and a butte.









The Colorado River has carved this part of the Canyonlands.  The flat area is about 1,000' below the area we were standing on.  We walked out one mile from the road to a viewpoint.









Although this is the desert, it is in bloom at this time of the year.












Below us, in the canyons were these fins and spires.  The Totem Pole, the single tall spire on the left, is the tallest spire in Canyonlands.











Here is a portion of the Green River.













At the end we came upon this balanced rock.  They are created when there is a harder rock on top of a softer layer that erodes faster.











In the distance are the La Sal Mountains.  If you look hard in this picture you will see the Colorado River in two places (slightly green/gray).  We were both really awed by Canyonlands.  We visited the Island in the Sky portion of the park (a mesa between the two rivers).  There are two other areas of the park which remain to be explored.

Oregon and Nevada

 We left Corvallis on June 15 for Page Springs Campground at the base of the Steens Mountains.  It is a beautiful spot, though full of mosquitos at this time of year.  We decided to take a short walk up the Donner and Blitzen (Thunder and Lightning) River to where we found this old dam.  There were lots of people fly fishing (successfully) for trout.  For the first time ever, due to the lack of precipitation, the road to the top of the Steens Mountain was open, so we decided to stay another day.



 We drove up to Steens Mountain, 20 miles gradually climbing from about 5,000' to 9,300'.  It is a fault/block mountain with a gradual rise on the west and a steep 1 mile face on the east.  You can drive to within 200' of Steens Mountain (the 9th tallest mountain in Oregon).  We quickly climbed to the top and then decided to walk down to Wildhorse Lake, seen below in this photo.






 The trail description included a description of going overland from the radio towers down to the lake.  We walked down a steep slope towards a waterfall.  You can barely see the radio towers in this photo.  The wildflowers were blooming and there were lots of rivulets.














                    We were the first people down at the lake this year and we ate our lunch after Bob took an extremely quick dip in the lake (there were snow banks on the edges).  We returned via the trail up this valley towards the headwall in the distance.  When we got to the headwall we discovered that the trail was covered with a snow bank and a very steep drop off, so we scrambled up a scree slope on the far right.





On the way back to Page Springs we stopped at all the look outs.  The Alvord Desert on the east gets only 6" rain each year due to the rain shadow created by the Steens Mountain.  There is a lake in the Alvord Desert and a wonderful hot springs we visited three years ago.  The Kiger Gorge (in the photo at the left) is clearly a glacial valley created in the last ice age.  From Page Springs we headed south through Fields, OR (home of the Fields Station and famous chocolate malts), Winnemucca, I-70 to Battle Mountain and south to Austin, NV and US 50, the Loneliest Road in America.  We stopped at Spencer Hot Springs just east of Austin.  It is a fabulous hot springs at the base of some mining facilities which has a lovely deck, bench, and carpet to keep one's wet feet from getting muddy.  It was almost too hot to enjoy in the hot weather.  

We continued on to Hickison Petroglyph BLM campsite just over the summit of one of the ranges in this basin and range country.  The petroglyphs here are quite interesting and included this zoomorphic (animal-type) petroglyph.  This campsite was really quiet and although there were quite a few campers, it was a lovely place to spend the night.  There was no water, though we can camp for many days without either water or electricity.




Sunset at Hickison Petroglyphs.