Tuesday June 10, 2014

 

Non-Travel Day

 

Today we traveled a few minutes north of the city of Moab to the “Arches National Park” . The park is famous for its more than 2,000 stone arches, but it also contains numerous rock formations, smooth rock domes, impressive rock walls and precariously balanced rocks. Unfortunately most of the arches are in areas inaccessible to the public; however, those that we were able to see were fantastic. We drove the entire length of the park road, stopping at all but a few of the overlooks and we took several hikes varying in length of up to .75 miles one way to an arch or to a spectacular view of an arch. One surprising feature at several points in the park is the volume of dark red sand, over millions of years the rain and wind have broken down the bonding agent within the sandstone rock, separating the individual grains of sand which are then blown into the valleys. Most of the sand hardens into the soil to support plant life, while some retains its granular consistency; it is just like walking over the very loose sand on the beach. After much hiking and rock climbing we were both tired and returned to the campground around 5:00 for a glass of wine.