April 25 - Arches, Part Deux and Road Touring Around Moab

Friday morning, we were up early to make to Arches by 7:30 so we could complete our hike before the heat and sun set in. Our plan was sound, and the parking lot was not full when we arrived. That said, there were plenty of other people enjoying the same hike we did. The hike was challenging but not our toughest hike of the trip. There was a steep climb over "slick rock", meaning it was bald rock, not that it was actually slick (though it would be if it ever rained). Then we had to skirt a relatively narrow ledge as we approached the last .2 miles to get to the arch. The ledge seemed very stable, but it was still nerve-racking when you had to pass other folks going the other way. The hike was worth it - Delicate Arch was breathtaking!

We were really lucky to get this perfect shot with no other people in it, plus framing the La Sal Mountains behind!

Wide shot of the Delicate Arch location. You get a hint of the wide, graduated opening that sits just below the rim where the arch is perched.

View looking up the slick rock that we had to climb.

 We made a few more picture stops on our way out. Arches National Park is simply exquisite!

Balanced Rock

This is called Park Avenue

We then headed to charge and have lunch at Moab Diner. Internet connectivity is challenging so that makes simple things more challenging, like finding the chargers and a good lunch spot. We got some local dishes then went next door to make sure we were all set for our rafting trip for tomorrow. There were no issues, and we're all set.

Next, we did some road sightseeing by driving about 25 miles along roads parallel to the Colorado River. The canyon is deep and old which provided some really cool areas. Along the way we also saw some petroglyphs and quite a few people rock climbing from novice to true expert.

From there we headed back to the yurts to relax a bit before we prepared tacos for dinner with a few of our new friends. We ended up eating inside the yurt, which was very roomy because the wind is just ferocious out here! It is easy to see how erosion is caused by wind in this dry environment.

April 24 - Day 2 at Goblin Valley State Park and onto Arches!

Thursday morning we packed up and headed for a challenging hike within Goblin Valley State Park: Goblin's Lair. This hike took us around the main Goblin Valley area to a new set of sights like the Three sisters, the Seven Dwarves, and the Goblin Castle. Finally, we reached Goblin's Lair. This was a scramble about 40 feet up through sand, gravel, and boulders. This was our most technical challenge to date. Haley made it 98% to the top, Leon made it to the cave, but we were both very nervous about falling on the way up and the way down.

Feeling froggy at the beginning of the hike. We got an early start, so it was nice and cool with a light breeze. We had the entire trail to ourselves, only seeing one other person from a distance during the entire 2 hours.

Taken by Haley from the height reached on the climb up to Goblin's Lair. Very much a harrowing climb.

Leon making the scramble.

Leon took this from the entry to the cave, called the Goblin's Lair (aka The Lair of the Basilisk)

The entrance to the Goblin's Lair - he didn't go inside.

Descending from the climb

My intrepid explorer stance

View of the area we climbed to get to the Goblin's Lair

We left there with a feeling of accomplishment, got our showers, then hit the road back to Green River for charge, lunch, and groceries. We had lunch at a tasty taco truck while we charged. The grocery store was about 1/3 the size of a normal store, but they had what we needed. From there we headed to Arches National Park. After talking to the park volunteer, we decided to see most of the park today except for the challenging hike to Delicate Arch. We saved that for the following day, when we could get up early and do it before it got too warm. My first thought as we drove through and saw the park was that it was a LOT more than arches. While the few arches we saw were cool, the monuments and walls in the landscape were the real highlights to us. That said, Landscape Arch was amazingly long, and The Windows had a truly unique architecture. Devil's Garden also had cool fins to see, and we learned how these formed. We enjoyed the Windows area most of all; it was close to the highlight for me: Double Arch, featured in quite a few movies, including one of the Indiana Jones movies.

We hiked the 2 miles roundtrip to see Landscape Arch - it is impossibly thin! Its span is equal to a football field.

One of the Windows

Haley's favorite: Double Arch

View from directly under Double Arch - Leon climbed up. That's me beside the boulders in the distance.

Looking up into Double Arch

Driving through Arches, there were these large formations/walls all along the way.

This picture shows the many layers of sedimentary rock that lead to the uneven rate of erosion, creating the crazy formations.

We stayed longer than planned because there were too many cool sights to pass up. From there we made our way to Dead Horse Point State Park where we were meeting Avi and her friends for our three night stay there in yurts. We so appreciate Avi taking care of this for everyone! We got in a little after 7:00 after a brief stop getting our tickets to Arches for the next morning (they have timed entry tickets required for entering between 7 and 4 each day - we wanted tickets for 7am so we could get to our hike early before the heat of the day). We enjoyed a little time with friends and then turned in around dark. The night sky was beautiful, but we were too tired to enjoy it that evening. We had hiked somewhere around 7 miles of trails with a good amount of elevation gain on each one. We were pooped!

April 23 - Day One at Goblin Valley State Park, Utah

Wednesday morning we were awake before dawn but managed an early morning nap, packed up, and pulled out of the campground around 8:00. After a quick stop for coffee in Grand Junction we headed to our first top, Trail through Time. This was a little BLM area with a fossil site that is actively worked by scientists and volunteers during periods of each year. We could see this quarry area and on our short hike also saw two spots where dinosaur fossils were left in place.

The dark areas on these 2 photos are the fossils in situ. The 1st photo shows the pelvis bone of a juvenile dinosaur. The second one is of a spine.

From there we headed to Green River for lunch at Tamarisk. That was enjoyable and from there we headed to Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. Our first stop was Valley of the Goblins. It is difficult to describe. Just take a look at the pictures. We toured a small part of this three-square mile area for about 30 minutes then headed to our campsite. That was also an amazing area with a great view and little places to explore.

Valley of the Goblins

Formations from valley level. So strange and cool.

The Three Sisters

View from our campsite

Another campsite view. The little shelters were great b/c they had wind barriers on the side that the strong winds came from.

View of the backside of our campsite

Nighttime view from our campsite

We were going to stay up and enjoy the dark skies but there was a light cloud cover, so we went to bed at dark. Overnight we did get up briefly and the sky had cleared. We could see the Milky Way. An amazing site!