Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Hiking + Arches: Part 1

I'm really behind on blog posts. I've been super busy and now I have caught the worst cold and have completely lost my voice. (sigh) At least now, I can catch up on writing about my adventures in Utah.  Last weekend, we took a drive down to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.  I took this photo out the car window on our drive to the park.  Isn't this beautiful?
Here's another photo as we were getting closer to the entrance of the park.  You can see on the right, some huge rocks balanced on top of the cliffs.
Arches National Park is known for their 2,000 natural sandstone arches.  On our first day in Arches, we did the hike to find the Delicate Arch, the park's most famous Arch.  At the entrance of the hike trail we saw an old log cabin, that used to be the home of a cattle rancher named John Wolfe.  He lived in this one room log cabin!  Can you imagine living in one room for most of your life? Amazing!
The hike is about 3 miles long, and with my little 3 and 4 year old nephews in tow, it took us a good 2 hours to get to the Arch.  Part of the hike was this steep rock structure / cliff.  It's a pretty steep incline for novice hikers like ourselves.  We took lots of breaks to catch our breath. 
We were pretty out of breath when we walked up this rock.  The elevation keeps going higher and higher.  Here's a photo of my brother's family, trekking our way up. 
To get some perspective of the elevation, check out this photo I took from the bottom of the hill.  The Arch was all the way at the top.
Along the way, we saw some amazing plants.  Here's an example of a tree at the top of the cliff.  Pretty cool.
The hike was so worth it, when we finally turned the corner, we saw the Delicate Arch.  And boy was it spectacular.  I mean, this photo really does not do it justice.
To get an idea of the sheer size of it, here I am standing underneath the arch.  It is enormous!  I look like an ant in this photo!  They say, the best time to go see this arch is at sunset.  And many say they come at night, because the stars are so bright.  Since there is little light pollution here, the sky is super dark here and perfect for star gazing.  One day, I would love to camp here.  It's spectacular!

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing. We visited Arches a number of years ago and hiked to Delicate while the sun was coming up. It is spectacular!

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  2. Wow, the views are amazing. It's hard to believe the Arch is a natural formation. I'm in awe. Have never been, but would love to some day.

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  3. What an awesome place. I bet it was just breathtaking. Thank you for taking us along with you.

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  4. I used to love to hike, but haven't for years. I remember taking our kids to our local nature center to hike, and our daughter would moan and complain about it. To this day, she prefers to be inside.

    Your posts make me think about taking the time to go enjoy the beauty of nature in our area.

    Beautiful photos! I know things in nature are always better in person, but since I am pretty sure I won't make it there, I was tickled to see what you captured.

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