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southwest road trip - day 2 - delicate arch hike
Our good friends Lindsey and Mike drove from Houston Texas to join us on this road trip. Today we headed to Arches National Park for some hiking (and of course to see the "arches"). Our first stop was a 3 mile hike to Delicate Arch (perhaps the most famous of the 2,000 arches in the park).
The trail sets out across some sparse desert landscape and then climbs 500ft in elevation across salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you'll see tiny black specks that are people climbing across the rock. It's hard to get a true perspective of the size of these sandstone formations in a photo. (Use the Back button on your browser to return to the blog after looking at the pic)
At the start of the hike, we pass the restored remnants of Wolfe Ranch. The 100 acre ranch was settled in the late 1800's by a civil war veteran who moved west to the drier climate seeking relief from his war wounds. Wolfe, his oldest son, his daughter and her husband lived in this small one-room cabin with separate storehouse, raising cattle. Can you imagine living in such a remote place? They lived here for a little over 20 years, before selling the ranch and returning to Ohio.
As we climb up the sandstone trail, we pass hollows filled with vegetation and catch glimpses of some small arches. (To qualify as an arch the opening must be at least 3 feet across, carved in one section of rock, and daylight must be visible through the opening).
We also encountered this leopard lizard.
Finally, as we near the top of the trail we scramble up to an interesting opening, only find it offers a "sneak peak" at our destination, Delicate Arch - a good spot for a photo of Mike, Heather and Mark!
Here we are rounding the final corner of the trail. It's hard to gauge depth from the photo, but there was quite a drop-off from this ledge.
The forces of wind and water erosion are amazing. Delicate Arch seems to be perched on top of a bowl of red sandstone.
To give you some perspective of the size of the arch, here are Mike, Lindsey and Mark standing beneath it!
On our return to the carpark, a short detour on a side-trail took us to view some ancient pictograhps carved in the rock. Known as the Wolfe Ranch Panel, this rock art depicts a Ute Indian hunting scene, with riders on horseback and their prey - big-horned sheep.
Our good friends Lindsey and Mike drove from Houston Texas to join us on this road trip. Today we headed to Arches National Park for some hiking (and of course to see the "arches"). Our first stop was a 3 mile hike to Delicate Arch (perhaps the most famous of the 2,000 arches in the park).
The trail sets out across some sparse desert landscape and then climbs 500ft in elevation across salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you'll see tiny black specks that are people climbing across the rock. It's hard to get a true perspective of the size of these sandstone formations in a photo. (Use the Back button on your browser to return to the blog after looking at the pic)
At the start of the hike, we pass the restored remnants of Wolfe Ranch. The 100 acre ranch was settled in the late 1800's by a civil war veteran who moved west to the drier climate seeking relief from his war wounds. Wolfe, his oldest son, his daughter and her husband lived in this small one-room cabin with separate storehouse, raising cattle. Can you imagine living in such a remote place? They lived here for a little over 20 years, before selling the ranch and returning to Ohio.
As we climb up the sandstone trail, we pass hollows filled with vegetation and catch glimpses of some small arches. (To qualify as an arch the opening must be at least 3 feet across, carved in one section of rock, and daylight must be visible through the opening).
We also encountered this leopard lizard.
Finally, as we near the top of the trail we scramble up to an interesting opening, only find it offers a "sneak peak" at our destination, Delicate Arch - a good spot for a photo of Mike, Heather and Mark!
Here we are rounding the final corner of the trail. It's hard to gauge depth from the photo, but there was quite a drop-off from this ledge.
The forces of wind and water erosion are amazing. Delicate Arch seems to be perched on top of a bowl of red sandstone.
To give you some perspective of the size of the arch, here are Mike, Lindsey and Mark standing beneath it!
On our return to the carpark, a short detour on a side-trail took us to view some ancient pictograhps carved in the rock. Known as the Wolfe Ranch Panel, this rock art depicts a Ute Indian hunting scene, with riders on horseback and their prey - big-horned sheep.
1 comment:
Great stuff! Very nice photos and captions. I've been looking forward to this post. I need to get back to Moab.
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