Day 45: 7/1/15 (Arches)
48 miles
We woke up around 7am
to make sure we had enough time in the park to get some hikes in before it
heated up. We decided to hike to
Delicate Arch first since we knew that was the one arch we definitely wanted to
see before leaving. We thought the hike
was only 2 miles, but it ended up being 3 miles and almost entirely uphill. Once we reached the top of the ridge, it
opened up into a huge basin with the Delicate Arch just to the left. We noticed a short line forming to take a
picture under the arch which was nice because fighting a crowd for a photo
wouldn’t have been fun. We sat for a bit
to enjoy the scenery before taking a few pictures. We tried walking around to the back side of
the arch to cheat the system, but the angles weren’t as great so we marched
back up and got in line. Fortunately,
the line wasn’t too long so it was a pretty short wait. The couple that stood behind us were wearing
a Boston Red Sox hat and a Connecticut t-shirt so we started chatting and asked
if they minded taking our picture once we got to the front. We ended up reciprocating the favor when it
was their turn. We also learned that
they were traveling to Yellowstone from Arches so we tried to give a few tips
as to where to see some animals. After
resting a little bit longer, we decided to head back down the trail.
There was one more
longer-ish hike that we had read about, but instead we decided to do a few
shorter hikes that were close by. We
started at Devil’s Garden and hiked a mile to see Landscape Arch, the world’s
largest arch. We also stopped to see a
few smaller arches along the way. Once
we were back in the car, we drove to the last few viewpoints that we hadn’t
seen yet. We also stopped at the Sand
Dunes Arch which was a short hike between some canyon walls to a small, but
spectacular arch. There weren’t any more
easily accessible arches so we headed to a picnic area for lunch. We had noticed a pavilion at one of the areas
the day before so we headed there to finish our snacks and sandwich fixings.
It was starting to
heat up after lunch so we just headed to the visitor center to fill up on
water. We walked around to learn a
little more about the park and its history.
We also stayed for the introduction video which was equally interesting
to watch at the end of our stay in the park.
It was nice to be in an air conditioned building for a while before
heading back to our campsite. At least
it was a cloudier day so it was shady, though still really hot. We were daydreaming of cold showers at this
point. We continued trying to catch up
on our blog posts and sort through photos.
Once the computer died, we killed some time playing some more
cribbage. We ended up using the picnic
table as a make-shift cribbage board and it worked out pretty well. Finally, we were hungry for dinner so we cooked
up some rice and veggies. It wasn’t
enough to fill up Rico so he had a granola bar too. Once the sun went down we headed into the
tent to try and fall asleep.
Fact:
You don’t need a
cribbage board to play cribbage – a grated picnic table works just as well
Lesson:
If you don’t want to
die in the desert, hike as early as physically possible
Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian
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