Arches 9 May 1999, Sunday Started: Fruita, Colorado, 8:00am (Mountain time) Reached: Green River, Utah, 6:30pm (Mountain time) Miles: 227 (2606 cumulative) Route: Colorado - Colorado National Monument Utah - Thompson, Arches NP Highways: I70, US191 Since we were ahead of schedule, we decided to do a part of the scenic drive in Colorado NM. The scenic route is about 40 miles long. We decided to drive on about one-third of it. The road was cut through the red rocks. There were even a couple of small tunnels on the road. We passed a balanced rock. Its an oversized rock atop a slim rock pillar. We decided to stop at the scenic spots on our route back. There were quite a few trails, but we did not have enough time to hike there. One of the interesting formations were "coke ovens". Its a bunch of huge yellow boulders standing in the valley. The rocks on the roadside were all red in color. It was the first time we were so close to the red rocks. We saw the Fruita canyon, and the plains beyond it, with the town of Fruita at the center. It was somewhere here that I realized that I had lost the spare car keys, as well as some keys from school. We searched, but did not find anything. This is why there should be more than one car key on such trip, carried by different people! While coming back, we stopped to see the independence monument, which is a huge rock broken away from ridge due to weathering of softer rocks. At the visitor center we saw a slide show on the formation of the Colorado NM. By 10:00am, we were back on I70, going towards Utah. It was here that we saw the first sign that the next service (water, food, gas, lodgings) was 85 miles away! Most of the services were marked "Ranch Exit" with "No Services" written on the board! We soon entered Utah, "Still the right place", and saw signs along the highway that read "Eagles on highway". We did not see any eagles, but did see quite a few ravens. We could see the snow-capped La Sal mountains on the horizon, but the area around the road was really arid! At a couple of places in the ranch we saw a few deers. These did not look like the usual white-tail deers of the East coast. There were also a few cows in some of the ranches. There were small canyons all over the ranches. The soil here seemed to be really loose. To visit Arches NP, we took US 191 to Moab. The hills along the road were now brick red in color! There was quite a bit of traffic on this road. Probably people returning from a weekend in Arches. We saw some vehicles parked in parking lots along the road, and some cyclists riding towards the red canyons. We had lunch in Moab and came back to Arches NP. This place is mind boggling! Even from the visitor center, we could see the huge orange boulders. Arches has a scenic drive running through it. We decided to do the drive first. But had to stop at Park Avenue Viewpoint to admire the rocks! There were two parallel wall of orange rocks. As we went further on the road, we saw petrified dunes. Among the ubiquitous red rocks, there were a few green and gray rocks as well. We took a detour to catch of glimpse of an area known as Fiery Furnace, and went to the end of the paved road to Devils Garden, a trailhead for Landscape arch. We did a small hike here. The soil was loose all along the trail. It was really windy. One gust threw the sand with such a force on us that we at once understood what forces shaped the arches! Next to Landscape Arch, we saw Double-O arch. The access to the base of Landscape Arch was blocked since the tourists have caused excessive erosion in this very fragile area by cutting numerous trails. There are also a lot of efforts going on for revegetating the area. The next stop was at Skyline Arch. A short hike led us to the base of this arch. In 1940, a huge boulder broke off from the left side of the arch, effectively doubling the size of the arch. We stood on a huge fragment of this boulder and gazed almost vertically up this arch! On the trail, we saw a really strange looking rock that looked like a sponge! Weathering here is weird! We decided to do a moderately strenuous hike to Delicate Arch instead of just driving to a viewpoint. The trail passes over exposed rocks, so is marked by small stone piles. We could see red valleys and some small arches along the trail. The trails seems to be cut through an orange-colored cliff. On the other side, we could see a yellow valley with horizontal lines marked on all the rocks. They may have been caused by water or may have been a result of different layers in the formation of the rocks. Delicate Arch was impressive! It stood aloof on an orange cliff. The sky was cloudy, so the photos did not come out great. But that also prevented us getting dehydrated. It was really windy near the top. We were afraid of losing balance! I tried to stand to take a photograph of Delicate Arch, but my hands were shaking so badly from the wind, that it was impossible to hold the camera steady. I had to press the camera against a rock to take the photo! The trail was short, about 3 miles roundtrip, with an elevation gain of 480 ft. On our way back, we took a detour to the Windows arches. Over here, the arches had interesting names like "Parade of Elephants", "Elephant Butte". "Cove of Caves" etc. We did a small trail to Turret arch and came back via both the North and South Windows arches. Combined together, they look like the face of a giant toad. We came back to the Visitor center, rested for a while, and drove back to I70. That night we decided to halt at Green River, Utah, after seeing a sign there "Next Services 110 miles"!!