The next day I got up early and fired up the stove, it is leaking. I got enough out of it to boil some water for coffee and decided to not start a fire and had a bagel with peanut butter, crunchy of course. I got up early to catch the light of the sunrise and go for a hike before the hordes of tourists descend.
From my campsite in the Devil's Garden facility, it is a short walk to the trailhead for the Devil's Garden trails. There are two trails, a main one and a more "primitive" trail around the outside and through some other fins.
The first arch you see is the famous Landscape Arch. It is very dramatic and thin. I understand in 1994 a huge chunk fell from the right side and someone managed to catch the fall on film. This is one of the few places that people are confined away from the features. There are probably two reasons here, popularity and safety. This is one of the easier arches to get to and very popular and the chance this whole thing could most probably come down in the near future.
The hiking is quite dramatic at times, finding yourself on the top of narrow fins, and highly sloped "slickrock". It is fun and challenging to see how much "smearing" you can do on a high angle rock face. The thrill of success is directly related to the amount of exposure and the consequences of the failure of friction and technique. Oh, yeah, there's that gravity thing too.
Additional bonuses are the flowers that are blooming in some hidden places.
My route took me out on the primitive loop and back on the main trail. The first arch I came to on the way out is on a small spur trail. It is quite appropriately called Private Arch. You happen upon it very suddenly, and surprisingly. It is actually a hole through a fin which is adjacent to another fin.
After much more hiking in some sand and on slickrock, you gain the main trail. This is going outward bound as yet. The farthest out feature on this trail in called the Dark Angel. It is a solitary pinnacle of dark stained sandstone. A gendarme in the rock climbing parlance. It can be seen from quite far off as it stands out in the open at the top of a slope leading down to the Salt Valley.
Another set of arches on the way out to the Dark Angel is the Double O Arch. It is two openings, one above the other. I have no idea what connotation is to be gained by this title. It is rather exciting to see, as it comes into view rather climaxically.
The flora and fauna of the park is varied and prolific. There are lizards everywhere and the ground squirrels are quite active. The lichens on the rock faces and boulders are dramatic and many colored.
The hike back to the trailhead is quite fun going over many fins and slickrock areas. I was quite amazed to see that there was evidence of previously installed handrails that have been removed. So everyone is left to their own technique and skill. Some are better then others. Some like to have contact with the rock with hands, feet, rear end, stomach and helpers.
The couple seen hiking on the top of the fin, I met at one of the arch viewing points. They had just been married and were here on their honeymoon. They are from Switzerland and are traveling and camping throughout the American West for two months. It amazes me at these National Treasures of ours how many people from around the world you run into.
This last arch on the Devil's Garden hike is Partition Arch. By this time of the day the trail and the arches get very crowded. It was now after "the crack of noon" after all. This arch has a nice bowl area for practicing your smearing technique. There were some kids having a great time much to the dismay of their parents who could not get to them to get them down on the main trail. I had nothing to do with encouraging that behavior.
After I completed the morning's tour, I had lunch. I then got bored. So I needed to go for a ride.
There is an area of rocks across the valley that can be seen from the Devil's Garden area. It is know as Klondike Bluffs. The road to get there is about 10 miles long from my campsite. The first two miles is on the main park road. A nice road it is! Then you turn off onto the valley road our to Klondike Bluffs. This is a dry gravel (ball bearings no adhesive material to hold together) road that runs across the bottom of the valley. It is traveled regularly by jeeps and trucks, so it is very wash-boarded. I did not know which was going to give out first, my rattled brains or my rear end. In the end I made the decision based on the wind, which in true Utah fashion, was howling again from the NW and cold.
The evening proved to be just as entertaining. The clouds came in and the wind came up even more, if you can believe that. The gusts were amazingly loud and sudden, above the typical wind. Then at times it would be dead silent. The night was great for sleeping as it seemed downright warm compared to other nights on this trip. I did wake up and arise to snow on the tent in the morning.
I have to travel into town in the morning to see about getting the stove fixed and get some more bagels.
No comments:
Post a Comment