Today, Friday, we had decided to get out to Arches National Park before it became too hot. Yesterday we had hiked a couple of short trails in the afternoon and really felt the drag of that afternoon heat, about 90 degrees. So we traveled to Devil’s Garden Trailhead, the farthest point, to hike to Landscape Arch and were there before 9am. Landscape Arch, along with Delicate Arch, are 2 arches highlighted in park brochures. Landscape Arch had a big slab of stone to fall from the arch several years ago. We then decided to continue on to the Navaho and Partition Arches. The hike was quite strenuous as we had to climb up large boulders at one point- actually going up was not as bad as the coming back down over those huge somewhat smooth rocks. It was probably about 5 miles. Starting out the temperature was in the 60’s but ended in the 80’s.
Our next stop was at the Windows area where there are 3 arches- North Window and South Window and Turret Arch but again there was a hike about a mile round trip. At this point we were feeling done in. We returned to the motorhome for lunch and a much needed rest.
Early evening we took off for Canyonlands National Park- Island in the Sky- which is north of Moab. Stopping at the Visitor’s Center we were given some pointers about stops in the Park. We did drive through the park making the Green River Overlook our last stop to view the sunset. The sunset views are to be spectacular at this overlook but the northern fires smoke interfered once again.
Cape Cod Canal
5 hours ago
