My new reality

Day 6 of our western adventure: we arrived in Moab after leaving Bryce and visiting Capitol Reef. The car was running fine with only a hint of transmission fluid aroma on occasion. We stopped into the Arches National Park visitor center to see if they have permits to hike the Fiery Furnace and indeed we grabbed 4 for Friday, 2 days hence. We headed to our hotel in the middle of Moab, the Gonzo Inn. Tina was concerned since she had selected it and no worries, it turned out to be delightful. The rooms were large, the linens were soft, and the decor was desert eclectic with gecko designs everywhere and rusted iron fixtures and moldings. Good find! They had fresh cookies and Halloween decorations and candy including Tootsie Rolls, my favorite!
We unloaded and hoofed it to the Moab Brewery. The beers were not getting any better but the hamburgers were great (don’t get the salmon burger, but why would you anyway?)
The next morning after a relaxed breakfast (I’m still anxious from the breakfast stampede at Ruby’s in Bryce) we headed back to Arches so Greg could photographically document every arch in the park. The rest of us hiked along for support. It was cool and sunny and only 30deg F but was sure to reach 50deg F by afternoon, perfect hiking weather as far as I’m concerned. We drove straight to the back of the park to hike the Devil’s Garden and Primitive trails, finding 7 arches in this 8 mile hike (Tunnel, Pine Tree, Landscape, Partition, Navajo, Double O, Private). The hike was more scrambling and bouldering than I’ve ever done and I loved it! We found ourselves wandering between red stoned walls, or fins, of rock and climbing up narrow ridges of sandstone domes to get from arch to arch. There was one narrow 6 foot x 6 inch very steep section where both Tina and I staved off panic attacks (no exaggeration) but we made it through. And then 2 old guys annoyingly ‘danced’ through after us without a thought. Tina and I were proud we did it anyway.

We worked our way to the front of the park, stopping at various turnoffs and parking lots to see a few more arches (Delicate, Broken, Sand Dune, Skyline) and Balanced Rock. After another tiring day we headed back to the Gonzo for the hot tub, some shopping in town, and dinner at Fiesta Mexicana. The margaritas were delicious (with the better tequila) but the food was meh.

On Friday we headed back into Arches to hike the infamous Fiery Furnace. A permit is required to hike amongst the red stoned fins and canyons and only 75 hikers are allowed each day. We were lucky to get a permit but I was nervous for the hike. Think of the Fiery Furnace as a corn maze: there is no map (well, you could download one from Alltrails), there are few trail markers, and there are many dead ends. And there are a lot of opportunities for scrambling and bouldering and squeezing yourself through narrow passages. And possibly encountering rattle snakes and spiders. It was a blast and one of the best hikes ever! In fact, more often than not, Tina and I found ourselves leading the hike and trying to find the best path through. We did use the Alltrails app occasionally for guidance when all else failed. It took us 2.5 hours to find our way out, about 2.2 miles total. There was no rush to finish, however, because exploring the dead ends was kinda fun too. There were no snakes or spiders to be found possibly because it was too cold, thank heaven.

Prior to hiking the Fiery Furnace we took in North and South Windows and Turret Arches and we found a few other arches within the Furnace as well. There are over 2,000 arches in the park so I guess we missed a few. We then headed over to Canyonlands National Park about 28 miles away. The drive took us through grazing lands and past more motocross and ATV playgrounds. Upon approaching the park we began to see the inverse of Arches: we were driving on a mesa and rather than looking up at towers and fins and domes we were looking down a few thousand feet at the canyon floor. The Green and Colorado Rivers were far below and divide the park into 4 sections. The level horizontalness (a word I just invented) of the tops of mesas and buttes in the distance caught my eye. The sheer expansiveness (also a new word I invented, I think) of the vista is amazing. And the fact that the NPS allows people to walk up to the edge of a sheer cliff is astonishing, or rather, it’s astonishing that people actually go so close to the edge. We visited Mesa Arch where we met some ADK people.

Additionally there were huge lava domes on top of the mesa and the Upheaval Dome far below. The Upheaval Dome is either a salt dome uplift, or, recently considered more likely, the site of a huge meteoric impact! So cool!

We ended the day at Grand View Point which had a lovely rim walk and extensive views of the canyon and rivers below.

The day ended with pizza and beer and another early night before departing Moab for more Southwest adventures. Stay tuned!

Some trip tips:Fiery Furnace permits are available online months ahead. We were lucky to get them only 2 days ahead for our trip but if you want to be sure to do it plan ahead. They cost $6.00 each unless you have the senior pass then they are only $3.00 apiece. This is a strenuous hike in that you have to shimmy, crawl, climb, lift, get lost, and balance on uneven surfaces. And enjoy exploring. Arches National Park is a very accessible park so if you’re not into hiking you can still see a majority of the sights. A few arches are maybe a mile distant from parking lots and most of the trails are packed stone or paved. Some are a little more uneven but all are worth the effort. The longer, primitive trails are definitely harder and often are not well marked. Greg has the Alltrails app on his phone. For a few bucks a month (he got it 50% off so look for a deal) you can download and have remote GPS access to the trail maps even without cell service. With the app you can see the recorded trail and where you are (or are not) on the trail, how far you have gone or have yet to go, elevation, etc. We used it a lot whenever someone (not me!) would ask “are we there yet?” We spent 1.5 days in Arches, 3 nights in Moab, and 0.5 days in Canyonlands which was plenty of time though we didn’t have traffic or crowds. We left on Saturday of Columbus Day weekend (aka Indigenous Peoples Day) and the crowds were definitely building and lines were getting much longer. Again, go into the parks early like before 9:00am and earlier. Canyonlands is also a very accessible park, most of the viewing can be done a few hundred feet from the parking areas or maybe a hike of a mile on slightly uneven terrain. If you go to Upheaval Dome, don’t bother going to the 2nd observation point, the 1st has really good views. Definitely go to Mesa Arch and Grand View but hold onto any child’s hand if they tend to run off (because they literally can ‘run off’!) Moab is a super cool town with lots of hotels and restaurants. We were at dinner on the early side (5:00-5:30) with no waiting for a table but there was usually a 45min wait by 6:00-6:30pm. I don’t know about later because we were usually asleep by 8:00pm (or I was) because of exhaustion. We ate at the Moab Brewery which had good food but not so good beer, the Fiesta Mexicana which had mediocre Mexican food but good margaritas, and Antica Forma, a pizza place, which had great wood-fired pizza and lasagna. I recommend the quirky, quiet Gonzo Inn in Moab. It was a comfortable hotel just off Main Street, walking distance to restaurants and shops and ice cream. The rooms were large (we had suites), the hot tub was hot, breakfast was decent and lowkey, the beds were comfortable with awesome soft sheets, and I did mention the Tootsie Rolls already. There are lots of hotels and camp sites and RV parks nearby.