3/12/10 - 3/14/10 Arches National Park

3/12/10 - 3/14/10 Arches National Park Adventure Stats:

• adventure days=3
• vacation days off of work=1
  
• highway miles=475
• Off-highway miles=25
• hiking miles=5
• total lodging costs(2 nights)=$20
• average lodging cost per paid night=$10
• average lodging cost per total nights=$10

Yea for us! Another blog entry without waiting 3 months after the fact! Again, pix first, boring text is at the bottom.

Entering the park via the Salt Valley Road


Sunset at balanced rock/ sunrise at the campground


Kids playing at the campground


Riley's rocks (the last image in the slideshow is a video, click on the movie icon in the lower left corner of the image after the slideshow is finished)


The campground slide (both of these images are videos, click on the movie icon in the lower left corner of the image to go to the video page, make sure to watch them both)


Devils Garden hike


Ranger Program with Park Ranger Odette


Hiking in the campground


Tapestry Arch/ Broken Arch hike

From 2010-03 (March) 09 Tapestry Arch- Broken Arch hike

Snowy morning


Visitors Center


The travelogue...

We had a great time with the Stitchers in Arches National Park. Despite, a week's worth of promising weather forecasts, it all changed once we actually got there. However, we had plenty of fun, and a memory or two that will not soon be forgotten :-()

• Fri 3/12/10: 5 hours travel to Arches National Park (for a humorous anecdote of our denied entrance via the backroads into the park, see below) - enjoyed an incredible sunset at balanced rock - set up camp at dusk - Stitchers arrived about 10pm
• Sat 3/13/10: Ron and Lacey got up early for a sunrise wander through the campground - the whole group hit the Devil's Garden trailhead before 9am, including Cally, the Stitcher's new dog - Now some of you might think that dogs aren't allowed on the trails in Arches National Park (that's what I thought), however, an anonymous park employee advised us as to where to look and where not to look to be informed (or uninformed) as to exactly when and where the "alleged" rule might or might not be enforced) - congratulations to all the kids for hiking a little over 2 miles without much complaining or lallygagging (I think a small bribe of "anytime you find an arch, you will get a snack" helped some) - after lunch, the kids (and some of the adults), took naps - Ron took a hike (just like everbody's been telling him for years) in the campground, later Lacey woke up and took Ron to the campground amphitheater where her newest alter-ego (Park Ranger Odette) held a ranger program, followed by a daddy/daughter hike to Skyline Arch - back at camp the Stitchers offered to put on a movie and watch the kids so Ron and Lori could take a hike (see below for an anecdote for their hair-raising experience) - snowed all night long!
  
• Sun 3/14/10: Still snowing - packed up - went to the dry, warm visitors center to look at exhibits and watch an orientation movie - headed home at a decent time! - Got home at a decent time! Had a GREAT time!

Anecdote #1: We had planned on taking the back way into Arches along the Salt Valley Road as our entrance to the park. 5 miles along the road, we started hitting snow patches. There were no vehicle tracks through the snow, so nobody had come this way for some time, at least since the last major snow storm. Determined to test the capabilities of the new Aussie locker in the rear axle of the Jeep, we pressed on. After another 5 miles of slipping and sliding and busting our way through snow drifts (underneath which we had found was several inches of slick, thick, gooey mud), we made it to the Northern entrance to Arches National Park. Confident in the inevitability of our success, we pressed on. We probably only made it another 100 feet before we were stuck in the snow. We backed up, got up some speed and busted through probably another 15 to 20 feet of virgin snow before we were mired again. We repeated this process 3 or 4 times, making a little bit of progress each time. My memory is that the snow was a good 2 feet deep with 3 to 4 inches of wet mud beneath. The pictures expose my mental exaggeration and show evidence of 10, maybe 12 inches of snow at the most. The hard decision: (a) A popular hiking trail is only 1 mile away from us. Has the park service has plowed the road from the other direction to that point? If we press on for 1 more mile, will we be home free? Or... (b) Has the park service has closed the road? In which case we still have 5 more miles of snow busting where we will find a locked gate preventing us from accessing the highway on the other end? Not willing to press our luck, we retreated, wasting a total of an hour off the highway. In exchange, we got several miles of outstanding scenery, plenty of peaceful solitude, an opportunity for the kids to observe a dozen or more newly born calves with their mothers close by-watching us suspiciously, and an opportunity for a family discussion about how daddy has the right to splash through as many mud puddles as he likes-regardless of how dirty Lacey's scooter (which is tied to the roof) "might" get. In the end, we didn't lose an hour of driving time, we gained an hour of great family memories.

Anecdote #2: After some hemming and hawing about who would like to go on a hike and who would like to watch the kids, Ron and Lori finally headed off for a hike with about an hour and a half of usable daylight left. We were planning to hike the Broken Arch loop hike that begins and ends right in the campground. Along the trail, a sign points out a spur that went to Tapestry Arch, an arch that neither of us had heard of and that didn't show on any maps. After the 1/4 mile spur, we returned to the main trail having spent 30 - 40 minutes on the detour. A short while later, with about 30 minutes of daylight left, we made it to Broken Arch. Within a few minutes, it started to storm pretty hard and the storm clouds robbed us of a good portion of the remaining light. Well, we probably had less than 1/2 mile of trail left to get back to the campground, but that trail went through the heart of the maze of sandstone fins in the campground. Having dealt with trying to hike across sandstone, relying solely on cairns (small stacks of rocks) for navigation at night once before; we didn't feel very confident about making good time or not getting lost if we were to enter the labyrinth. It takes a long time to find a cairn, leave one hiker with it while the other hiker goes ahead shining their flashlight and searching in all directions for the next one: then moving on. We knew of another spur trail that would take us about a mile in the opposite direction back out to the main highway. This longer trail was arrow straight, easy to navigate, and flat. As a matter of fact we could see the cars on the highway from where we stood. The problem with that option was that we were looking at an additional 2 miles along the highway to get back to the campground, making us very late and causing the Stitchers to worry. Opting for NOT getting lost over making the best time, we headed for the highway. Story's not over though. As we crossed the flat, open field. The storm added lightning and high winds to its fury. We booked it as fast as we could across that field till we got to the highway. Along the highway, we still felt pretty exposed, even though there were some sandstone cliffs nearby that would likely have attracted the lightning away from us. All of the lightning that we observed was cloud to cloud and not cloud to ground, that didn't give much comfort though as a couple of bolts were extremely bright. About a half of a mile from the campground, we both saw a flash of light that was similar to if somebody were to stick a camera 6 inches from your face and take a picture with the flash on. Despite the brightness of the flash, neither of us actually saw any lightning bolt; we didn't know if it was in front of us, behind us, to the side, or just cloud to cloud overhead. We didn't know where it was or how close it was. But it was so bright that it blinded both of us for about 30 seconds. We stood there off the side of the road just kind of stumbling around like a couple of drunks. After 30 seconds, our eyes began to come back into focus and we could again make progress. A minute or so later, a truck came around the corner on its way to the campground. We hitched a ride and ended up back at camp about 45 minutes later than we would have liked. Sorry to worry the Stitchers, but we decided it was better to take a little extra time and have them worry a little bit, to make sure that we weren't lost, than to actually BE lost. We owe you guys an evening of babysitting ;)