Arches, Arches, and more Arches!

Thumbs up and smiles for a beautiful ride in Arches National Park!

I was lucky enough to greet the sun Monday morning while driving into the hopping little town of Moab, Utah. Bleary-eyed from a night at a truck stop it was nice to feel the warm rays of the sun and get my bearings in a very foreign landscape. I've never been to any place like the Moab area before: giant sandstone canyons, cliffs, towers, and crags everywhere. November is a good time to visit since I picture it being extremely hot during the summer. But it's still able to thrive and be green due to the presence of the Colorado River. The area is definitely an adventure-seeking tourist destination: campgrounds and guiding companies are advertised everywhere and there is access to trails for any off-road transportation imaginable (thankfully this includes mountain bikes...).

Prints left in the rock from dinosaurs found near the road.

With a full tank of fuel in the Champ, I headed back out to the Bar M trailhead, put together my bike, and took off on my first ride in the desert of Utah! My plan was to ride into Arches National Park via a back road and then make a loop back to my truck. It was an interesting style of riding: on sand, through washes, over sandstone slabs, all following a jeep road, but the views were phenomenal. Blue skies and sunshine abounded, giving a full view of the surrounding sandstone features peppering the otherwise barren landscape.

The feature on the right is called the Sheep's Head, can you see it? And can you see the "Baby Arch" on the right? These columns are though to be connected by an arch at some point.

The back road that I rode on hit the main Park road at the Balancing Rock, an interesting pillar of rock created when the softer stone of the base was eroding faster than the round block on top leaving a top-heavy looking balancing act. I then flew back down the pavement to the Park entrance, it was tough to keep focussed on the road for the endless distractions around me. No canopy of a vehicle to block any view and no windshield to block the wind whistling past my face, it was exhilarating.

The obligatory entry-sign-photo...

Back on the paved bike path that parallels highway 191 north toward a lot of the riding destinations, I was making the loop back to my truck when I saw a sign for the Killer B Hike-a-Bike up to the Bar M trails. Naturally I had to check it out seeing as how I was getting bored with riding a paved, so I hauled my bike up a pretty gnarly section of trail, hit the Bar B, Bar M, and Rockin’ A trails, and rumbled back to my pickup.

Me in front of the Balancing Rock.

Then the Little Champ took me for a driving tour of Arches NP, deciding to go all the way into the Park. I parked at the Devil’s Garden trail head and went for a jaunt down “Arches Alley.” It seemed as though there were sandstone arches every half mile down the trail: the Window arch, the Pine Tree arch, the Double O arch, the Navajo arch, the Private arch… It was very cool to see features like the Landscape Arch that are featured in hiking brochures and classic photos advertising the Park. You can make the hike into a loop by taking the “Primitive Trail” back, adding a little extra mileage but making it worth your while, escaping other tourists for some solitude and providing cool hiking terrain: scrambling over rocks, around pools, and down through some slots and sandy washes.

At the Landscape Arch. A 60 foot slab of rock fell from the thinnest part in 1991. Go see it quick before it all falls down!

With a couple hours of day light left, I couldn’t resist the hike into the Delicate Arch. The mile and a half hike leaves the road and takes you up some smooth sandstone before curving around the backside of the arch. They have ground a path up the rock, complete with stairs in some places, to provide safer travels for people to see the picturesque location. And what a treat to be there at sunset! The arch is the most photographed in the world, and rightly so with a sweeping sandstone bowl leading up to the arch itself and a backdrop of the snowy La Sal mountains behind.

I was fortunate to be up there with time to just sit and process a lot of the things that I had seen that day, doing a little writing in my notebook, and reflecting on the awesome power of our Creator. It is understandable that humanity has such an affinity for shape, form, beauty, and art knowing that God has a similar eye. I am thankful for the treats that he shares with us.

The Delicate Arch at sunset. Supposedly a picture is worth a thousand words, but my little camera will never be able to do justice to the grandeur of such amazing time and place.