It looks like Utah is just TOO MUCH, already, to combine into one long post, so I guess I will have to write a bit at a time. There are so many national parks here, and so far we have only been to two, but it feels like there is a lot to share already.
We have been in Moab for a few days. Moab is an interesting little town. It exists primarily to serve the people who come here for the spectacular hiking and mountain biking in this area, and to serve the people who are visiting the two national parks here, Arches and Canyonlands. There is a school and a library, and all the rest, but it still feels like almost everyone you see must be just passing through in a jeep or an ATV, or in hiking boots or a mountain bike. I wonder what it is like in the dead of winter and the intense heat of summer. I'm sure there are a lot of visitors then too. It is surely worth visiting at any time.
Arches is just amazing. I won't even pretend to understand the geologic forces at work, although I keep hearing about it and I ought to understand it by now. This entire area is just so spectacularly beautiful, and weird and interesting, that it just seems like one more bizarre thing that in this particular place, the erosion has caused these amazing sandstone arches. The rocks here look like all kinds of things: buildings, animals, people, objects, anything you can imagine. Some of the formations have names that reflect that: jug handle, parade of elephants, three gossips, courthouse. It's like the experience of lying on your back on a summer day and staring at clouds: first it looks like one thing, and then a minute later it has changed again, and you walk or drive farther and it looks like something else. It is incredible.
This one is called "the windows"
This one looks like a hand making the "ok" sign
This is under an arch, looking up
My favorite of the arches is one that you can't even recognize when you see it. It's called Landscape Arch. I think it's called that because the arch blends into the landscape and you can't even see it when you look at it! Then you get closer and your perspective changes. And there it is.
Can you see the arch here?
Here it is, revealed
Canyonlands National Park, which we hadn't been to before, just defies description. The canyons are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon, but it also has tall formations above the rim, so it is spectacular both above and below. It is the largest national park in Utah, and it just goes on and on and on. It is divided into four separate areas, and it can take up to six hours to drive from one area to another. So you have to pick one or two. The area that is most commonly visited, and closest to Moab, is called Island in the Sky. Unlike some of the other national parks, much of Canyonlands is largely only accessible when you leave your car. There are some roads, of course, and you can see a lot by driving the rim. It is spectacular. But it is easier to see it by doing some hiking. A lot of people do back country hiking and camping here, which I am sure is amazing. But even just the hikes that leave from and come back to the road on the rim are nothing short of amazing. It is one of the most spectacular places I have been in my life.
Canyonlands also has amazing arches
This is a view of the white rimmed canyon, one of many
Also looking at the white-rim canyon. You can see a four wheel drive road going across the lower rim
The sky indicates what has happened every day we have been here
We had a truly amazing experience yesterday. To really see more of the area, you need to either hike extensively, or take a car with four wheel drive onto some of the primitive roads. Since we are driving this mammoth car, which we need in order to pull the trailer, we thought, gee, we have four wheel drive, let's try it! So we got some advice from a ranger about where to go, and set off. We didn't go across the lower rim, but on a side road that leads into the park.
Here is a bit of size perspective. This is beginning our drive.
Even the regular highways here are breathtaking.
At this point I should say something about the weather. The temperatures have been delightful since we have been here. Not too hot, and not too cold. And this area only gets about nine inches of rain per year. Doesn't seem like rain should be much of a factor, right? Wrong. When it rains here, it comes suddenly, and it rains like Noah better get busy. These have been the most intense lightning storms we have ever seen. And then, suddenly, there is just a DELUGE. This has happened at least once in each of the days we have been here.
So, we set off on our four wheel drive excursion. Yes, there are rocks to drive over. Yes, there is mud to go through. At least once we started to give up and turn around, because what was allegedly a road just looked like a bunch of rocks. We kept having to get out of the car, scope out the best approach to a certain rut in the road, and then give it a whirl.
Yes, this is a road. We are looking at it. And thinking.
Sometimes we were just driving on rock.
A close up view of the "road"
This is "the side of the road"
After a friendly little chat about what to do next, we decided that the car is not just a fun thing to drive around in, but needs to pull the trailer for the rest of this trip. If we bottom out and scrape the underside of the car on rocks that we can't see in the lake, we are done for. So......we turned around. And in the end, we repeated the forty five minute ride with only some mud-slinging and sliding and heart palpitations. Hooray!
When we got back to the paved road, we discovered something extraordinary. There were waterfalls EVERYWHERE. When you look at this red rock, you see the black desert varnish on the rocks, which comes from water, and and you see crevices in the rock, which are created by water. It seems impossible to imagine that in a place with so little rain, so much erosion could occur. And then it rains....and you think: oh, I get it! You wouldn't imagine a flash flood could occur in a few minutes. But yes, it can. There were waterfalls rushing over the sides of the rocks, and muddy water rushing
downstream in the previously green, but now brown, Colorado River. It was just an astonishing sight.
Little trickles going down the rocks
A deluge goes down the rock
Mostly we saw the new waterfalls from far away
Today we will bicycle along the Colorado again. Tomorrow we will travel to another, even more remote, part of Canyonlands, and then begin to make our way towards Capitol Reef National Park, which is another one of Utah's many spectacular national parks, and another one we will visit for the first time. Utah, you are quite something to see.
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