Last Days in Moab- Arches & Movies

We had driven past the entrance to Arches National Park several times and noticed that there was often a line of cars waiting to get in.  I read that you could avoid many of the crowds if you went early or late, so we set our alarm clock to get up bright and early.  We drove into the park shortly after 7:00 a.m.

                    The morning was quite chilly, but the light on the red rocks was beautiful.

Arches National Park is 76,518 acres of red sandstone formations including

spires, fins, pinnacles,

balancing rocks,

and, of course, arches and caves.

The most famous arch is Delicate Arch, which is featured on Utah's license plates (and every kind of souvenir you can imagine).  Another reason I wanted to get an early start was because they were doing construction on the parking area at the trailhead up to Delicate Arch, so parking was severely limited.  We found a spot and headed up.

There were some petroglyphs -

more rocks,

views,  but what they don't tell you in the brochures is that the trail to see Delicate Arch is over a mile, up sheer rock, at times.

Looking up (there are tiny people at the top)

And looking down (at the tiny people at the bottom!)

At times, the trail was hard to follow - we had to look for these stone cairn markers,

and, at times, you just couldn't believe that the trail was going where it did - notice no guard rail!

But, then we rounded a corner, and there she was.

Delicate Arch.

It's a little hard to see, but it is perched right on a cliff.  You can make your way around to the left on my picture and have pictures standing under the arch, but there are steep drops everywhere and Ron wasn't going & wasn't keen on me going either.

So, we took our Selfie and headed back down the mountain.

I was glad we'd beat the crowds on the narrow trail.  Great views though!

We are always amazed at how nature adapts to these rocky, desert conditions.  I thought the gnarled juniper trees were fascinating, in a "Sleepy Hollow" way.

Ron liked the rocks!

 

This part of the park was also home to Wolfe Ranch. 

This sign explained that John Wesley Wolfe & his oldest son settled here in the late 1880's. In 1906, his daughter Flora, her husband & children came to Wolfe Ranch.  She was appalled by their living conditions.

So, they built this luxury cabin with a wood floor.

Can you imagine that 5 adults + children lived in this space for almost 10 years?

 

After our hike, we drove on through the Fiery Furnace

to Devil's Garden

and a trail to see more arches. 

There are more than 2,000 arches in Arches National Park.  Many of them can be seen on the 18 mile long road through the park, but others are best viewed from the trails. 

This is Landscape Arch.  It is the longest arch, and, perhaps the most fragile.

The trail used to go up under the arch, but in 1991, hikers thought they heard thunder.  Then, a huge chunk of rock broke off the underside of the right side of the arch. 

On this same trail, high above was Double O Arch - kind of an arch within an arch.

We headed down a different trail.

and found Pine Tree Arch

Tunnel Arch & a cave.

Of course, with sandstone, you get sand.  There were areas where it had built up, and that's where the kids wanted to play.

I bet their parents are still cleaning red sand out of their ears!

 

Last stop for us was the Windows & the Garden of Eden.

The Windows area has tons of arches, caves, tunnels & small holes (windows) through the rock.

The Garden of Eden was these weird towers.

Someone was climbing this one!

Arches was a really full day, but what a wonderful way to spend the day.

 

Before we left Moab, I had read about a winery (in Utah!) called Castle Creek Winery, with a tasting room at Red Cliffs Lodge.  It was a gorgeous drive along the banks of the Colorado River. When we arrived, we did the tasting (not bad), bought a couple of bottles of wine, then headed over to the Moab Museum of Film & Western Heritage, also at the lodge.

 

The lodge is built on the old  George White Ranch.  George White was the founder of the Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission, the longest ongoing film commission in the world.  Over 120 movies, hundreds of TV series & numerous commercials have been shot here.  They have a huge amount of memorabilia, information, videos - it was really fun to see!  Movies include a number of old John Wayne movies, plus modern day favs like Easy Rider, National Lampoon's Vacation, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Thelma and Louise, City Slickers II, Forest Gump, The Lone Ranger (with Johnny Depp!) & 127 Hours (the real life event did happen in the area).  Just one more thing to see in Moab!

 

I know that this has been a long post, but even so I couldn't do Arches justice.  We are off to Grand Juction, Colorado & Colorado Wine Country.  Cheers!