Day 25 – Gossiping on Utah’s Park Avenue

Oct. 1
Arches National Park/Utah
Total driving so far 2,552 miles / 4,083 km.

Arches-National-Park-on-google.maps

Saturday was one of the most amazing days on the Schnitzeljagd; we had picked our Grand Junction basecamp partly due to the proximity to the Arches National Park. We have been visiting the park before in the early 2000s with a very memorable hike where we got lost and young Carla thought we are going to die. Carla’s whatsApp comment to our second trip was ‘a childhood trauma unlocked‘; well at least trip # 1 was memorable for her too.

Arches is mind blowing; it reminds me on Egypt and a visit to the Valley of the Queens.

(Talking about memorable life events, I ran into Karin on that trip to Egypt for the first time).

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The mighty scale of the rock formations, their astonishing shapes, the pureness and crispness of the sky, the intensive glow of the red rocks, this all is jaw dropping.

Already the drive from Grand Junction to Arches along I70 was visually amazing. We started with a thunderstorm darkening the sky:

The huge trucks on the road seemed unimpressed from the rain and battled for supremacy:

We entered Utah and it got even more impressive:

Finally the park; there is timed entry until Oct. 3, so we had to buy a $2 ticket the day before. The wait at the entrance was still about 20min. The park was not busy, but not empty either. Visiting during high season must require solid nerves, though.

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The different rock formations and arches … Park Avenue right at the beginning of the park is one of my favorites. The Three Gossips, The Organ, The Courthouse, brilliant names. The Gossips seem indeed to talk to each other since thousands of years.

Click on the images to see them in larger scale; it seems worthwhile…

One heads from one amazing are to the next by driving along a 26 miles long park road. The hikes to the arches and rock structures are short, but the sun is intensive at 5,000 feet / 1,500 m sea elevation, and one feels a bit the height. It all adds up to being really ‘toasted’ at the end the of the day.

Finally, finally around 5:00pm we made it to the parking area for our last hike.

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The Delicate Arch is the one that is synonymous with the Park. The granddaddy of all Arches.

Its very interesting to photograph, since it has been photographed for so many times and one is constantly wondering whether there is any different angle left; pus there is remarkable arsenal of cameras pointed on the arch at any given moment, and some people shouting to others to hurry up with posing underneath the arch.

We left around 6:30pm, with a thunderstorm approaching. We decided that we don’t want to hike down when the red sand turns into a soapy slippery mass from the rain and cohorts of fellow visitors in sandals might slide and tumble into us.