Wilderness Wandering

September 28,29, and October 1

After lunch at Canyonlands we headed to Arches NP. They are only about 30-45 minutes apart. 

We picked up our permit for the Fiery Furnace for tomorrow. The park has Ranger lead and self directed hikes for The Fiery Furnace.  The Fiery Furnace is a hike through a sandstone maze. There is scrambling required.  The number of people per day is very strictly regulated and you have to have a permit. With the lead time we had planning this trip, the ranger lead ones were all sold out.  We arrived at the Visitor Center and watched the required movie about the rules for the FF and received our permit. We also stamped our passport. 

We went to check into the hotel – HTR Moab. It’s a very cool place. Not fancy, but exactly what we need.  We have a private dorm room, but there is a separate bath house. The room is simple but comfortable. There is a community kitchen that is beautiful.  After the most heavenly showers, we went into Moab to get dinner. Tim had found a panini restaurant we wanted to try. It ended up that it’s a block full of food trucks!

We enjoyed it! It was an early night. 

We entered Arches NP before sunrise about 6:55 AM. 

We drove straight to the Fiery Furnace trail head. We were the first car in the lot. At the required meeting yesterday, the Ranger talked to us about there not really being much of a trail through the Fiery Furnace. There are a few arrows and you really have to watch for them.  One big thing is to walk in only rock or the washes, so as not to disturb the delicate soil crust in the desert.  

We entered the trail. We saw the first arrow and it was pointing to the left,  but there seemed to be many footprints to the right as well. We went to the right and we just wandered for a good hour! Climbing up rock faces and slipping between stones and having a blast. 

Eventually, we made it back to the arrow and got back on the path. 

At one point, there was  a sign saying that  the way we were going was a dead end. The Ranger we met with yesterday said even the dead ends can have cool surprises. So we took it. We had a hard time getting back on the trail. 

We had only passed 2 people the whole time we were in there and they were going there other way. 

We seemed to be kind of lost and heard voices coming, so we waited for them.  It was a man and a woman. The man said he’d done the hike once before and he gave us a clue where to go. It’s hard to find the trail on rock! We did fine for a bit, but then were searching for trail once again and they caught up with us. 

We ended up hiking the last 1/3 of the trail with them and it was very fortunate we did. Brendan (the guy) is the acting superintendent of Arches and he was showing his cousin Megan around. We found a cool surprise at one dead end – Surprise Arch and Brendan took our picture for us. It was one of, if not the best hike we’ve ever done!

We had lunch at the picnic site at Fiery Furnace. Then we drove the rest of the scenic drive. We hiked to a few arches, but we were pretty warm by then. It was 89 degrees.

We went to a laundromat and did a load of laundry. 

We went back to the same food truck court for dinner. Tim had a gyro wrap again and I had a salad and peach gelato!

About 6 PM we drove back into the park and went to the Window Arches parking lot to see sunset and moonrise. It’s a full moon tonight. I wanted to see if I could get a shot of the full moon through the North Window Arch. Unfortunately, my i-phone wasn’t good enough to capture the shot. But watching the moon rise over the landscape was still amazing! There were a lot of people there. 

This morning we had an entry pass for 11 AM. We were a bit early so we drove down Hwy 128 along the Colorado River bordering Arches. It was a gorgeous drive. If we ever come back, we will definitely camp along there. There were 6 or 7 BLM campgrounds. They are all first come, first served.  You can’t reserve them in advance. 

We entered the park about 11:30 and immediately went and did the 2 mile round trip Park Avenue Hike. It was a fairly flat hike in a wash through gorgeous monuments. I highly recommend it!

Next we did the Sand Dune Arch, and  we could see Broken Arch in the distance. Then we did Skyline Arch hike. 

I’m my opinion, we saved the best hike for last – 3 miles round trip to  Delicate Arch. There is a great petroglyph panel near the beginning of the trail. 

 The trail is labeled as strenuous. It was strenuous in terms of elevation gain, but the trail was slip stone the whole way, which I find easy to walk on. 

The line to take your picture at the base of the arch wasn’t too long. But, I think the coolest shot is from above. As you approach the arch, on the right, there is a ledge with an arch. You have to climb a little to get up there, but the pictures of Delicate Arch through another arch turned out really cool! 

We did not get around to doing The Devil’s Garden hike. It’s a highly rated 7.2 mile hike. We had to save something for next time.