Through My Lens - Arches

The National Park Road Trip - Arches

Returning to the Arches National Park after our sunrise breakfast, we needed to show our park pass and ID to get back in. (If you are a senior and don’t have a National Park pass, you are missing out on a great deal. The pass for seniors is only $10 and gets you into any national park.) This time through we picked up a map and a newsletter. The beginning paragraph of one of the articles caught my eye:

“Arches National Park is a vibrant, living museum where works of art are displayed, preserved and protected. Some of the displays you might find include tapestries, mosaics, and jewels. As you travel through the museum, see what catches your eye.”

That couldn’t be more true. As we explored throughout the day, we marveled at the many sculptures, some resembling the figures we’d seen in Greece. The architecture was superb. Walls that were straight seemed to form villages or fortresses. One section called the Courthouse even looked like the area of a city that housed public buildings.

The park gets its name naturally from the many arches that are found throughout. An arch is defined by having a hole worn completely through it as opposed to just a rounded shape over a cave. 

Landscape Arch was the first one we visited after our sunrise at the Windows. It’s a long trek and we wanted to do it early before the heat of the day. This is a desert and you do have to take precautions with the heat—including lots of water. Several places had drinking water available for you to fill your bottles if needed.

Landscape Arch is not long for this world. One side of it is getting very thin. The last big landmark arch to collapse happened about six years ago. In the movie at the visitor’s center they show the collapse. So sad but as the narrator points out one may collapse but another is about to be born. We spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon working our way back through the park and stopping at all the landmark arches and unusual sculpted landscapes.

What about the mosaics and tapestries? Well as you look down you see all sorts of small plants, lichen, algae, mosses, etc. that make up the crust of the earth. Those are the mosaics. The tapestries are found in the threads of color that run through the walls of the cliffs. The red coming from the oxidizing (rusting) of the iron in the soil. The yellow from organic acids. The blue-green from volcanic ash. All the colors exposed as wind and rain and snow make the beautiful sculptures that abound in Arches National Park.

Oh, lest I forget the jewels. Those are the sparkling stars that shine as a backdrop to the looming sandstone sculptures after dark. We didn’t stay long enough to see those at the park but we did return after a quick dinner in Moab to watch the sunset from the vantage point of Balanced Rock. A lone photographer still stood by his tripod as we left to return to our car. He was waiting for those jewels to come out in the night sky. I’m sure his patience was rewarded. 

The National Park Road Trip - Sunrise in Arches

Five thirty came early but we were ready for it. We dressed hurriedly and started out for the Arches National Park. The beautiful drive the afternoon before with all the curves and scenery still had the curves but it was pitch black now with just a slight promise of the dawn if you looked above the dark cliffs.

The park is open 24/7 but the ticket booths were unmanned at this hour. We discovered they didn’t start collecting entrance fees until 8 a.m. Using the map from our AAA book, we easily found the area where we wanted to watch the sunrise. There are lots of areas suggested for it but we chose the Windows.

The Windows consists of several large arches, a couple which overlook a scenic view thus creating the effect of looking through a window. At the right time of the year, the sun will rise right in the window. This was not that time. We could see that it would rise more to the south of the window.

While we awaited the appearance of the sun, we explored a bit and enjoyed the quiet of the morning. A jackrabbit was having his breakfast and seemed unperturbed by our presence. There were only a couple of other people there and everyone was quiet either in reverence of the breaking dawn or still half asleep.

The sunrise over the horizon was beautiful but the spectacular part came when the rays of the sun illuminated the interior of the window arch. All about us the landscape began to glow red and orange with the morning rays. Off in the distance from our higher vantage point we could see more sandstone monuments take on the bright colors of the sun.

A tummy growled and we knew it was time to head into town and have some breakfast. We’d be back in a little while and begin to explore this wonder more thoroughly.

The National Park Road Trip - Arches

After saying goodbye to our Ohio friends in Salt Lake City, we drove southeast toward our first National Park on our list, Arches. It was a good four hour drive and got more desolate the farther we drove. When you run out of McDonald’s stops you know you’re in the middle of nowhere. Desolate or not as far as civilization goes, the scenery changed constantly but the closer we got to Moab, Utah, the more desert like it became.

Soon we were seeing the red, red cliffs of the Arches area. We were arriving at the right time of the afternoon to view the beautiful colors. The angle of the sun was making the sandstone appear more red than sandy brown.

The sign for the entrance to the Arches National Park went by and another for Moab appeared but before we reached the town, our GPS lady told us to turn onto a road that followed the Colorado River through a valley sheltered by towering red cliffs. I began to catch on to why our hotel/resort for the night was called the Red Cliff Inn. What we didn’t catch when we made the reservations was that it was almost halfway around the park from the entrance—a good twenty-five minute drive.

By the time we arrived, it was almost time to eat and we quickly made reservations for the restaurant. Our room was very nice with a small kitchenette and a private patio area with a view up the river and to several red cliffs. Picture perfect!

 Too tired to do much more than shower and go to dinner, we enjoyed our food on the porch of the restaurant and watched the sun play shadows on the red cliffs as it set. The evening was great but the night was spectacular. Bob made a trip to the car for something and called out for me to come and look. There were so many stars in the sky it was hard to pick out the constellations. Those cowboys knew what they were talking about when they pitched their sleeping gear under the stars and gazed up in awe. There wasn’t a lot of gazing for us. We were off to bed—not a sleeping bag. It would be an early wake up call to be able to catch the sunrise in the park in the morning.

The National Park Road Trip

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting about what my husband has dubbed our National Park Road Trip. We always promised our kids we would go to the Grand Canyon. They just didn't realize it would be without them.

Our trip begins with visiting friends in Boise, Idaho. We'll be there on a special day, our forty-six anniversary. Our friends, who pastor Valley Shepherd Church in Meridian, were with us for our silver anniversary. I won't make him sing for this anniversary though.

From Boise, we travel to Salt Lake City and will take a look at the Mormon Tabernacle before heading to our first National Park, The Arches near Moab, Utah. Then it's on to Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and the Grand Canyon ending in Albuquerque, NM for the International Balloon Fiesta. 

Lots of miles. Tons of scenery. A fun fiesta! It's been a while since we've been on the road. Let the travel begin!