Moab, Utah
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Warmed with a hot shower after a cold rainy night in Arches but we awoke to a beautiful sunny day. Internet and breakfast bagels before heading into the park. Arches, like Zion, Bryce, and Page was crowded with tourists. Windows Arch and a hike up to Double Arch were great with the deep blue skies above the red sandstone arches. Drive over to Delicate Arch and with camera gear in hand we head out to Delicate Arch. Delicate Arch is the poster-child for Utah, appearing on the Utah license plate and welcome signs. The hike out was hot and dry, but Delicate Arch was well worth it and we stayed a while taking many pictures and enjoying the geography. A side hike back to the car to some entertaining petroglyphs of sheep, horsemen, and dogs. On the hike back the western sky was quickly turning dark but we thought we might have some time to get to Landscape Arch – a long sweeping arch about a mile hike in. We told a curious hiker that Delicate Arch was well worth it and that they probably had about an hour left before the weather arrived. Boy were we wrong. Two minutes out of the parking lot, the wind increased to 30+ mph, the rain started and quickly turned to sleet and hail and the sky was dark despite it being around 3:00 in the afternoon. The hail was bouncing off the rock formations and hikers, dressed for a leisurely afternoon hike, were running to their cars completely drenched. Needless to say, we skipped landscape arch and headed north to camp outside Vernal at a desolate lake.
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