National parks - part one

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(It’s pretty difficult to do justice to the parks in these short entries, so I will try and include more photos below).

And so to Arches National Park (21st September), the first in a series of natural attractions we will be seeing in the desert regions of Utah. Arches is probably the most famous of these, and it’s incredible landscape includes natural arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins and eroded monoliths. The terrain is mostly red sandstone, punctuated by old juniper trees and pinyon pine. It takes a good day to see the main sites, longer if you want to hike some of the many trails. The weather was hot but not unbearable, and we found a good campsite in Moab with the kind of facilities that you don’t find in the state parks (namely showers, electricity and laundry room). We stayed there for three nights altogether, using the site as a base for seeing Arches and Canyon Lands.

The next day we visited Canyon lands, about 30 miles from Arches. Again a national park, but this time the landscape is (surprisingly) more about canyons. There are three main areas of Canyon lands - we visited the most accessible area, “Island in the sky”. Aptly named, this part of the park lies on top of a 1500 foot high mesa, connected to the “mainland” by a thin piece of land called the Neck. Erosion continues in all the natural parks, and in many years from now the Neck will erode, cutting off the “Island” completely. From the various viewpoints you can see up to 100 miles in any direction. The vegetation is similar, but the landscape is quite different. Canyon lands also seems to be less visited than Arches, and as such was much more relaxed to visit.

On 23rd September (Happy Birthday Joey, Happy Anniversary Paul and Jane), we had a cold and wet start on the road East to Capital Reef National Park. There was a dusting of snow on the top of the Rockies as we left Moab, and the air smelt heavily of fresh rain and wild sage. These are the things you get to experience on a bike that you don’t in a car - you feel immersed in the scene, not just driving through it. Of course you also get to feel the wind and rain more too! On the way we stopped at Natural Bridges monument, not sure what to expect. This is actually a very nice park, with bridges (technical difference: Arches are free standing while bridges traverse water). Similar vegetation on the top, with Douglas fir and ponderosa pine in the canyons, where the rivers are responsible for carving the landscape. (Although all three parks are quite close geographically, their various features are formed by quite different phenomena).

One problem we did encounter between the parks was scarcity of fuel stations. This is quite a remote area, and towns are few and far between (sometimes fuel is available, but only low octane which is not suitable for the bike). At Natural Bridges we were able to get some emergency fuel from the rangers; otherwise we may have run out before reaching our next destination (Capital Reef National Park). Although this area is not the traditional sand dunes that spring to mind when you think “desert”, it is nevertheless a desert area, and not the kind of place you want to be stuck in without transport. The rangers advised a scenic route, which is one of the top 5 scenic routes in the US, and which turned out to be breathtaking in its own right.

We finally arrived at Capitol Reef National Park quite late in the evening, with just enough time to put up a tent before the sun set and the cold set in for the night.

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Photos

prickley pear cactus
shown to scale especially for Tom's sisters

Comments

[Teri T]

Is that a quarter I see. Thanks Brother Joe.