After a relaxing night in the hotel (we didn't have to scramble to take care of much since the trip is winding down now) we did a daytrip into
Arches National Park, a quick 5mi drive north of Moab: It's Saturday, it's a prime travel/tourist weekend (just prior to Memorial Day) and it's right next to a town without a vacant hotel room under $200 tonight. It is
packed!! No surprise, but it's a bit jarring to the senses after our week of seeing just a handful, if any, other people each day of hiking. Arches is a fairly small, condensed park- at least that which is easily accessed by car. Traffic and parking was terrible, so we elected to venture northwest on an 8mi gravel road to the less frequented Klondike Bluffs area of the park. Good call, sanity somewhat restored.
From the trailhead we took a pleasant 2.5mi hike back to Tower Arch for our token arch experience. Lunch beneath it was nice, and saw some very interesting geologic features along the way.
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| Marching Men formation; LaSalle Mountains beyond |
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| beneath Tower Arch |
Arches is a really interesting place that I'd love to come back and explore when it's less crowded; or rather, when I had enough time to venture into its undeveloped backcountry regions. A daytrip, however, is no way to do it justice.
For our last night, we drove back to where we started- our secret stash campsite northwest of Moab. We had the place to ourselves, stoked a nice fire of fragrant juniper deadfall and cooked up a tasty dinner of steak, baked potatoes and smores over the fire. A gorgeous desert sunset bode us farewell.
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