Sunday dawned windy and cool with a slight chance of rain in Arches. We decided to drive around to see some of the sites. We stopped at the parking area for Fiery Furnace--we had a permit to hike it on Monday. The trail goes through the red fins and it gets it name for the fiery red color when the sun shines on the fins.
Our next stop was the Upper Trail to view Delicate Arch. For some reason, we didn't take any pictures. Maybe it was because we knew we were going to hike the trail to Delicate Arch later in the week.
We continued on our drive to Garden of Eden just outside The Windows area.
A lot of people don't stop to see this, but if you walk up the rocks, there is another arch visible that you can't see from the road.
Yes, I enjoy walking up the rocks to get a better view of the area.
As you can see from the pictures, the weather cleared up and we decided to go for a long hike! We went back to Sol and prepared to hike to Double O Arch! It is a long hike, but well worth the views you get of Arches!
The first arch you see on the trail is Tunnel Arch.
In the same area, is Pine Tree Arch. Guess how it got its name?
Landscape Arch was our next stop. It is the longest arch in the park. Bob gives you some perspective as to the size of the arch.
Then it was time for some rock scrambling. We had to climb the fin and walk along it to continue the trail. There is quite the drop-off on either side.
We enjoyed the views while we hiked.
Double O Arch had the sun shining through. The sun and clouds change the look of the park on any given day.
Now Bob and I are quick to change our plans....soooooo, we decided to hike the primitive trail back to the parking lot. It was not too bad until we got to the place we had to slide down a rock and then walk around a slippery ledge to get to the trail in the wash that leads back to the parking lot. Well, we made it down the slide to the logs that blocked the chasm.
And we stopped to watch people ahead of us try to maneuver around the slippery ledge. That is when we decided to return the way we came! It was just too scary watching people slip on that ledge! So, we had to crawl back up the sliding rock to head back to Double O Arch.
Once again, we had to traverse the fin. It is quite the view going across the top of the fin!
Once we made it to the end of the fin, I celebrated! Going down was much easier than going up!
For a day that started out cloudy and yucky, it turned into a great day for a hike and we were EXHAUSTED when we got back to Sol. We had hiked over 7 miles!
Tomorrow--FIERY FURNACE!!
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