Arches National Park – 2010 Day 3

Delicate Arch is probably the best-known natural arch in the world.   It has been featured on both postage stamps and license plates.

Last year, during our visit to Arches National Park, we hiked to the Delicate Arch Viewpoint, but decided this year to actually hike to the Arch itself.

We began early in the morning, to avoid as much heat of the day as possible.

The trail head leads first past Wolfe Ranch.  In the late 1800’s John Wesley Wolfe and his son moved here from Ohio looking for a drier climate to help with the pain from a Civil War wound.  He chose this spot along Salt Wash for its water and grassland.  They erected a crude cabin, a corral and a small dam.  More than a decade later, John’s daughter and family joined them.  Shocked at the conditions her father and brother were living in, Flora convinced them to build a new cabin with a wood floor – that cabin, still very primitive by our standards, remains today.

  The 3 mile round trip hike then leads over a footbridge stretching across the wash.

  

This first stretch of the hike climbs slightly, and runs though a rugged area with lots of scrub brush.

The next part of the hike is the most strenuous, up an incline of slickrock (a word coined by early settlers whose metal-shod horses found the expanses of barren rock slick to cross).  We stopped several times, both to catch our breath, and to take in the breathtaking panoramas of the surrounding area.

 

At this point, there is no visible trail, just small cairns of rock to mark the way.   

Once you’ve scaled the slickrock, there is less of a incline, but the trail twists and turns and climbs through washes, around outcrops and between stands of twisted brush and trees.   

Quite abruptly, you emerge at another span of slickrock.

The National Park Service has created a trail at this point around the base of the promontory.  The view is fantastic, but Delicate Arch is still nowhere in sight.

Across the ravine we spot an arch

and up a steep incline to our right is  Frame Arch.  Some hikers climbed to this arch to get their first view of Delicate Arch, but we decided not to; if you fall, it’s a long way down.   
A set of stairs has been carved into the stone

and then, just as you round a sharp bend, 

a few more steps, and

you get your first look at Delicate Arch!  

The immediate area has unguarded cliffs plunging down one hundred feet or more.  Walking across the slickrock to the arch was the hardest part of the hike for me.  If one was to lose their footing, there is nothing to catch onto, or to hinder your fall to the floor far below.

What a feeling, though, to look out across the great vista stretching from horizon to horizon.

Standing near the arch, we were able to look across at the spot we viewed the arch from last year. 

We took several pictures of the arch,

and then it was time to head back across the slickrock to the trail.

At the rim, another hiker offered to take a photo of the two of us.

The hike back is almost all downhill, thankfully, and offers some great views.     

As we neared the footbridge, we took a short side trip to a Ute petroglyph panel.

We have not often seen panels depicting horseback riders, as many such sites date to an era before the horse was introduced to the area.  This panel is estimated to have been created sometime between 1650 and 1850.

 

It’s been a long, hot day, but the hike to Delicate Arch is one well worth the effort.

Arches National Park 2010, Day 2

Within 2 miles of the entrance to Arches National Park lies the first major pull-off of the park, and some of the more massive red sandstone formations, entitled Park Avenue, for it’s resemblance to the skyscrapers of a city street. 

Short Walk to the Viewpoint

Most visitors to the park will stop, walk out to the Viewpoint, take some pictures, and return to their drive through the park without considering a hike down this amazing trail between enormous towering walls of red sandstone. We decided to hike the 1 mile canyon.

The hike is labeled moderately strenuous, primarily for the 320 foot descent which is almost entirely at the trailhead, as rough steps have been built into the descent.

As in all of Arches, the landscape is almost overwhelming in size.

Perhaps the two most fascinating formations to us were those labeled Queen Nefertiti and Sheep Rock.  Queen Nefertiti looks as if a small earthquake could just slide the top off.

   

Sheep Rock is amazing in how much it actually resembles a lamb or sheep, right down to the eye, ears and nose.

  

Most of the formations we saw are visible from the road and easily accessible viewpoints, but there is a large difference in seeing them there, or actually from the hike.

Word of advice, though, to any considering the hike.  There is a parking area at the end of the trail for vehicles to park if picking up hikers only wanting to hike one way on the trail.  It would make a much easier hike to park there, walk  up the canyon and back, without having to descend or ascend the many stairs at the trailhead.  Naturally, we thought of this only after descending the stairs.  J

For more photos from the hike, click anywhere on the map below:

Arches National Park – 2010, Day 1

Arches National Park is truly a landscape of wonders.  We visited the area last year while traveling with Hoyt and Bernice Odom.  Did some hiking then, but promised ourselves to return, and we have.

We chose the hike to Landscape Arch for today.  On the way, we spotted Sand Dune Arch near the road. 

Landscape Arch is in the Devils Garden section of Arches National Park.  As the world’s longest span natural sandstone arch, Landscape Arch is one of the world's greatest natural wonders.         

Along the trail to Landscape is a short side trail to Pine Tree Arch and Tunnel Arch.

Pine Tree Arch and beyond

   Tunnel Arch (actually two arches)

The trail is relatively easy to Landscape, and very scenic.   

And then you arrive at the famous Landscape Arch. 

It is hard to believe that a piece of rock like this can exist. In its thinnest section the arch is only 11 feet thick, yet it supports a span of rock approximately 300 feet long.

This arch could collapse at any time. On September 1, 1991, a 73-foot slab of rock fell out from underneath the thinnest section of the span, reducing the thickness of the span from 16 feet to 11 feet. On June 5, 1995, a 47-foot mass of rock fell from the front of the thinnest section of the arch, followed by another 30-foot rock fall on June 21, 1995. The short loop trail that went directly underneath the arch has been closed because of government liability should more rock fall.  Another arch, Wall Arch did fall recently, in 2008.  Prior to its collapse, it was the 12 largest of the park’s more than 2000 arches.

The trail continued on, but the wind was getting strong, and the next stretch would have been over slickrock, where we really have been exposed to the wind, so we called it a day and returned, for a total hike of about 2 miles.

For more photos from the drive and hike, click on the photo below: