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.
