Changing Direction on the Fly -- Arches and Canyonlands

June 02, 2021

Friday, June 4 for Wednesday, May 19, 2021

It is understood that I have fallen behind in posting, and we are so close to the end. All the procedures I had been following to move pictures around so they could be imported began failing me near the end. so some, what I consider good, pictures will not appear, but I hope there are still some good ones.

We started the day after breakfast and departing the hotel to Arches National Park. Let me say here, I wanted Arches to be my favorite of the Parks we visited, because I had seen so many wonderful pictures around that Park. We were really only a few miles away, and we got there 10:30-ish, and the Park was already full, and the line went out to the road. We switched gears and decided to visit Canyonlands National Park, which we presumed would be smaller, and we might try Arches later in the day. We were very frustrated, because we didn't really understand how Canyonlands was laid out. We went back into the town of Moab and found a place that sold different tours, and obtained a map which helped.

As with so many of the other Parks, there were sights to see on the way in.

Finally, we reached the entrance!

The road you see in the picture below could be traveled -- but not by us in a Prius! It was originally a road for mining trucks.

The next picture makes sense only if you are able to expand it and read it -- an information board about the canyons.

Like most Parks, this was one way in, same way out, so we drove a loop and saw the sights, took pictures.

Maybe because we were a bit disappointed in not getting into Arches, we didn't give Canyonlands the attention it deserved. It was vast, the vistas were staggering in size and beauty.

We left that Park and drove back by Arches. It was still jammed at about 2:45 PM. We decided to take an early dinner/late lunch, and return to Arches after closing hours. The Ranger kiosks closed, but the public could still drive in. That is what we did, drove right on in, and with a plan by navigator Randy, we got to see just about everything possible, except the Visitor Center/Gift Shop, closed for the evening.

We got into the park about 5:35 P, and sunset there was about 8:30 P, but remember -- mountains all around us would effect what we saw of sunset! As you can see below, it was plenty cloudy, too, which would also effect what we saw of sunset.

Randy was proud of getting the bird in the photo below, probably a raven or a buzzard, hard to tell at this distance!

We've talked before about some of the odd names given to the rock formations -- like Capitol Reefs, which reminded the first people who saw the area of something familiar. We came to Park Avenue -- because of all the huge rock formations, people thought they looked like office buildings.

Our next stop was La Sal Mountains Viewpoint.

Below was one of our favorites -- Three Gossips!

If you are not able to expand the information board below, it describes a "fallen arch" formation, showing that even though the Park is filled with outstanding formations, they change over time through wear, erosion, changes in season.

As you can see, we were snapping pictures like crazy, aware of the fading light.

We've been to Montana, "Big Sky" Country, but it had nothing on Utah!

If you are like me, you are probably wondering ... where are the Arches? We were finally coming to an area that had them.

The board above is for the arch that is usually used to represent the Park. Please take my word for it, I took my own picture of it, even hiked in as close as one was allowed to, and it was still about 3/4 of a mile away! My picture we pretty tiny, but I cannot get it to load into Google Pictures from my phone/MacBook. As Randy just said, I'm almost done, won't have to use these frustrating programs again.

Following is an area called Broken Arch. We begin with the walk/hike in to see it. The sand was inches deep, softer than any beach I have ever been on. It was slow walking.