Day 8 - Arches National Park

We took it easy this morning and caught up on our rest with the plan of hitting the trail during midday.  Midday.  The hottest part of the day.  Not the best time to hike in THE DESERT!  Fortunately it was only a short hike from the Devil's Garden trailhead to Landscape Arch.  Landscape is the longest arch in the park at over 300 feet.  At its narrowest point it is only six feet thick.  In 1991 a major chunk of the arch collapsed leaving what we see today.  We felt like we should walk out and see it because the rest of it could fall anytime now or within the next thousand years.

Here's a shot of Landscape Arch.



Some nice people from Australia took a shot for us after I took a shot of them with their camera.



After Landscape Arch we headed back to Moab with a quick stopover at Park Avenue.



We had a nice lunch in Moab and then wandered around in the various t-shirt shops so that Aaron could find the perfect expression of his warped sense of humor.  I spent the rest of the afternoon after that working on photographs because that's what photographers do.

About 7pm we headed back into Arches for the sunset at Double Arch.  There were a lot of people up in the arch but they all cleared out at the perfect time..... well, except for Aaron.



The sunset at Double Arch turned out quite nice.









Tomorrow we head to Colorado.  From Moab we go north to I-70 and then we point the Xterra toward the sunrise.  Our plan is to pass through Rocky Mountain National Park from west to east and wrap the day up somewhere down near I-25.  We'll keep you posted.

You know the routine.  Click a photo for an enlargement and click it again to go to the GIGANTIC gallery.