Monument Valley

Arches National Park

Park Avenue

This morning the stifling heat had thankfully subsided. Our Arches park pass was still valid so we went back to the southern section to walk along Park Avenue.

The Park Avenue walk follows a ravine for about a kilometre. I can see why they call it park avenue because it is though you are walking down a street with sky scrapers on both sides.

At the end of the avenue (and across the real road) is the Courthouse towers (middle of the photo above).

The last spires on the avenue are the Three Gossips facing off against Sheep Rock. The morning light was much more friendly for photography than yesterday.

On the opposite side of the avenue from the Gossips is this massive sheer wall. I just can't reconcile how nature manages to produce these structures.

The structure in the foreground is called the Organ Pipes.The Courthouse Towers behind.

Once again, the Courthouse Towers. We had to get going because we had lots of driving to do today.

From Moab, we made out way south and into the south east corner of Utah with the main focus of the day being Monument Valley. Along the way there was a lot of scenery similar to the photo above of the Valley of the Gods.

The only significant civilization between Moab & Monument Valley was Mexican Hat and that only has a handful of buildings. The town gets its name from the balanced slab in the photo above.

Monument Valley

After much driving & seeing distant shapes on the horizon, we came up over a rise & there it was. Monument Valley. Most people wouldn't know of Monument Valley if asked, but every one would recognize the landscape. It featured in just about every western film shot in the 50s to 70s. It's pretty impressive when it appears out of nowhere like that. After the great view of Monument Valley we continued along the road to the entrance to the Navajo Indian Reserve.

This patch of Southern Utah & Arizona is pretty much owned by one Indian Tribe (or Native American or First Nations People) or other. Most of the land is useless desert or arid farmland so the "Locals" aren't interested in it because it's too much work.Wherever they think they can gouge the unsuspecting tourist for a few bucks, it's suddenly 'Sacred Tribal Land'. (Just like back in Oz with the mine sites in WA.) Monument Valley is no exception. The cheeky sots charge $15 US to drive onto the site to take a closer look at the natural rock structures. The roads that they claim to charge us to maintain are in dreadful condition. Lucky we had a near new 4Runner that handled the conditions just fine & even let me have a bit of fun.Above are the left & right mittens. The movies I mentioned before were shot in & around these spires in particular.

Other features include the Three Sisters;

The Totem Poles;

Merrick Butt;

And John Ford's Point is a great place to take in the whole area.

Artist's corner is another very good outlook point in Monument Valley. You can see most of the main features from one point.

There was one odd structure in the middle of nowhere. I can't quite work it out but I wasn't too sure what a fire hydrant was doing 10km from anything in the middle of the desert. Them Yankees are crazy!

Arizona

After the Monument Valley visit, we drove (well I drove & the girls slept) for a couple of hours across fairly featureless country to Page just over the border in Arizona. It was just me & the GPS telling me "How much longer on the screen" & the occasional voice saying "Turn right in 500m". About 100km short of Page, we stopped at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. There was a nice view of a butt, but not much else. There were a couple of roadside sellers trying to flog us junk trinkets.

It took me a good five minutes to work out what was rustling around in one of the shrubs. It took another twenty to get a photo of it. Chipmunks never sit still for long.

The plan was to go to a crack in the sandstone called Antelope Canyon. I had done some research and it looked like a brilliant place to visit. Nice idea, but again the Navajo wanted a crap load of money to go in and it needed clear skies and the right time of day to get the nice lighting for photos. By the time we arrived, the clouds sky was threatening an Electrical Storm and it was well past the time for taking nice photos. So we decided against it and headed for Page.

Page, Arizona

Page is a town that sprung up from a construction camp for the Glen Canyon Dam. The Glen Canyon Dam blocks the Colorado river to form Lake Powell (below), a huge water body that spreads from the dam wall near the AZ/UT border, far into southern Utah.

Having already seen the renowned Hoover Dam and being a bit underwhelmed (I think because the wall's obscured by power lines & transformers), the Glen Canyon Dam is way more interesting and impressive.

In the photo above, you'll see the Glen Canyon Bridge that runs neatly across in front of the dam.

The Glen Canyon Bridge is a key Colorado river crossing because the next one north is a few hundred kms drive back near Monument Valley somewhere. To the south you have to drive for an hour and a half to cross the same river on the way to the Grand Canyon. The next one after that is the Hoover Dam half a day's drive away.

Horseshoe Bend

About 5kms SW of Page there's a huge loop in the Colorado River called Horseshoe Bend. It was hot and the walk to it was sandy, but it was totally worth it. The pictures tell the story. This same photo is on a wall of just about every hotel, shop and restaurant in Page {Edit: and now in our Dining room}.

The photo above was pretty tricky to take (below). It is nearly a mile from the edge of the cliff I'm lying on, straight down to the Colorado River. As always with landscape photography, the lens is never quite wide enough.

We are staying in Page for two nights. It isn't a bad town and there were plenty of options for food at night. There didn't appear to be much in the way of nightlife, but after a couple of full on days of travel, none of us were in the mood for late nights anyway.

Arches National Park

Yesterday we flew down to Salt Lake City in Utah with Kerri's sister, Julie. We had a few dramas getting out of Calgary airport together. Julie's incoming flight from London was delayed and ended up cutting it fine to catch the connecting flight with us. Kerri tried to go and find her only to be the one about to miss her flight.
Today is the start of a week long epic circuit of the southern Utah national parks. We're then going back to Cowtown to take Julie on a four day whirl wind tour of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks.

We went to pick up our hire car from the airport which should have been a 5 door hatch of some sort. We were asked if we would like an upgrade (as they normally do) but we declined. Lucky we did because the agent then said, "We don't have the type of car you ordered so were are giving you a free upgrade to an SUV."
"Well... Ok, I suppose so." I said. Then they asked me which one. I couldn't help but pick the 4Runner. James has one and I've taken a liking to it over the last 12 months. This will definitely make our trip way more comfortable.
The photo above was taken this morning outside our hotel in Salt Lake City where we stopped overnight. It was the beginning of our 2500km road trip among the red rocks of southern Utah.

We had to get moving early because the drive to Arches National Park is nearly 400kms. There isn't much of interestenroute and we saw a lot of terrain much like that in the photo above.

Arches National Park

Just before we reached Moab the terrain changed and, before we new it, were at the entrance of Arches National Park.

Courthouse Towers

From the park entrance at the southern extremity of the park, the road winds up between sheer cliffs for short while. At the summit Park Avenue (above) is the first marked feature we saw. You can walk its length down to where the road sweeps around to meet the other end of the Avenue. We chose to keep going because there was so much to see today. We have some time tomorrow morning to come back so we put it on the list for the morning when it is nice and cool.

Park Avenue meets the road just behind the Three Gossips (above). The Three Gossips are one of the more interesting formations in the park. Little explanation is required for the name of this formation. Sheep rock faces the Gossips (right of picture).

 Across the park access road from the Gossips is the Courthouse Towers. The Courthouse Towers seem a bit off track with the name to start with until you see the rock people at the top right of the feature.

Devil's Garden

After the initial excitement of some really interesting rock formations, we drove all the way out to the end of the northern access road that ends at the Devil's Garden (above). The garden contains three notable arches along with some impressive vertical faces that are only properly appreciated up close.

Just beyond the gateway is Tunnel Arch (above). If it was out in the middle of nowhere we would rave about for days after. Unfortunately, since there so many other amazing arches in the park, Tunnel Arch looses some of its grandeur.

Pine Tree arch is quite close to Tunnel arch and down the same side trail. As impressive as it is, in the context of Arches National Park, it rates as average. There is a small, weather beaten pine tree under the arch.

We back tracked along the side trail and saw a few puffs of cloud building up. We thought nothing of it at the time as it was getting pretty hot and we were in the middle of the US in a desert. More on that thought later.

This was a very abstract formation. It looks like the elongated face.

We didn't have time to hike the whole trail but we did make it to Landscape arch (above). Landscape Arch was one of my favourites today. The surrounding 'Landscape' frames the arch with longest span of any of the arches (88m).

By the time we passed back through the gateway the sun had made its mark. We all had varying degrees of sun burn and were already getting dehydrated. Back at the car we applied sunscreen and filed our water bottles.

Back tracking south along the road, we made a stop for Skyline Arch. It is one of the more picturesque arches and the sunny skies gave us the most incredible azure skies to offset against the burnt orange coloured rock formations.

Fiery Furnace

Delicate Arch

We were heading for the road junction in the middle of the park so we could take the eastern road out to Delicate Arch. A mile or so from the junction is the Fiery Furnace (above). I have absolutely no idea how the rocks formed over time in this park but they're nothing like anything I've seen in my travels.

To get a view of Delicate Arch, you have to take a short but steep trail up to a lookout point. The reward is obvious. Delicate arch is probably the most spectacular of the arches in the park. It The picture above with taken with a 300mm zoom lens and the scale of it is very hard to gauge without some sort of reference. There are two people in the photo to put some sort of perspective to it.

In the photo above, Delicate Arch is that little arch the the top left of shot. The enormity of the rock formations in the park really challenge the mind. It's well worth sitting at the lookout point for a few minutes to appreciate the surrounds.

Balanced Rock

From Delicate Arch we pressed back toward the middle of the park. Balanced Rock marks the spot in what appears to be slap bang in the middle of the park. It is one of the highest places in Arches NP so it seems appropriate. At that point we became more aware of the building storm clouds. It gave us a sense of urgency to keep moving. Despite that, we couldn't help but take a few silly tourist shots.

 Garden of Eden

From Balanced Rock we headed for the Windows Section. About half way we stopped at the Garden of Eden. I'm not too sure where they got the name for this one but whatever the reason, I like the lone soldier sentry looking out over the park.

The Windows Section

The Windows section is a cluster of impressive formations. As you approach, Cove Arch (above) comes into full view.

The Parade of Elephants. Kind of... The photo below makes it a bit more obvious.

Cove of caves.

 Again, nothing too cryptic about the name for this one. Alone they are know as the North window & South Window. Together they are called the Spectacles. We went for a wander/scramble through the specs and Turret Arch.

Turret arch (above) is directly opposite the Spectacles. It is about the best place to take photos of the Spectacles.

Double Arch.

Double arch is in fact the one the the far left of picture. The second arch is set behind the one you can see & makes a V shape if you looked at it from above. We would have gone for a walk to get a better look but thought better of it. It was at the end of the day, it was pushing 40 Celsius, there was a nasty thunderstorm baring down on us and we were a bit arched out to be honest. The heat was making everyone a bit narky so we decided it would be best to head for the hotel. It was a good thing we did because the heavens opened shortly after and quenched the parched desert landscape.
We stayed the night in the small town of Moab. Judging by the vehicles parked in the main street the area is a magnet for serious four wheel drivers. We had a nice Mexican dinner before turning in for the night.