Today is mom’s birthday. That’s right Isaiah was born on the 16th and Mary Therese was born on the 17th. We have not celebrated either birthday as a family for 5 years because the boys and I are usually at Sabattis, the Boy Scout camp during this week. We got up as usual but did not give mom breakfast in bed. It was an early morning and we needed to bike to the trailhead for this day’s arches. We are doing the Devil’s Garden loop today. We met up with Dwight and Janet since they were leaving for Moab and had communion with them. I shared from Mathew 26 and Dwight prayed. It was a very blessed time. We gave said our goodbyes then Isaiah and I unstrapped the bikes and after eating breakfast together we took off for 7 arches. It is very hot and I am bringing 7 liters of water for the 9+ mile round trip hike. At the trailhead, I had the boys wet their T-shirts down real well and also had everyone wet their hats to keep the sweat from evaporating to fast.
Once on the trail, we all began to feel the heat of the Utah desert. Ocassionally the sun would be blocked by the tall sandstone fins, I told the kids walk fast in the sun and slow in the shade. Rest as often as needed. Fortunately we all are in fairly good shape. What amazed me were the number of tourists we met along the way with a single bottle of water. Some hiked into landscape arch which is quite a distance up and down over fins with NO water. The land was arid but as beautiful as can be. Just a unique different look and feel as to what NY offers for hiking. All red sand and sandstone formations with trees and bushes and plants and small wildlife against a blue sky. Wow! I took a minute and reflected on how awesome our God is.
Well we hiked for a while on desert trails stopping often. We drank plenty of water, but were careful to make sure we had enough for the return hike. Our first 3 arches were Tunnel, Pinetree and Wall arches. Each had unique characteristics that gave it its name. Some were obvious, other not so much. I snapped a picture of the 3.
The kids had a great time scrambling up the arches. I had to remind them that what goes up must come down. Because of the sandstone, it is easy to get a hand and foot hold to climb up. Getting down can be scary and everyone had to be careful. Isaiah gave mom a heart attack often. After taking in the beauty of these arches, we went to see the famous landscape arch. It is known for the large piece that fell of it in the 80’s that was captured by a tourist. Since that time no one can get close to the arch. It narrows to 6 feet thick at one point in the arch and most rangers believe it will eventually fall all together. We are happy to be alive to see it in its entirety. We then hiked to Navajo and Partition arches.
At this point we all were hot, it is over 100 degrees and m little guy did not want to make the long hike to double O. So mom and Ethan started back. Isaiah and I went on to Double O. The hike was 2.5 miles one way from where we split up. It was mostly in the sun, but we did get to walk on top of sandstone fins which reminded me of climbing granite faces in the Adirondacks. We eventually arrived at double O arch. It was fascinating to see how water had eroded 2 holes in a fin, one large and one small. Isaiah immediately took to climbing it. We passed through the little “O” and I sat down to enjoy God’s handiwork after a long grueling hike. The next thing I know Isaiah is gone. I whistled, no answer. I am a little concerned but thought I’d give him a minute to respond. The next thing I see is Isaiah on top of the large “O” walking across the arch. I yelled to him if it was safe, in retrospect that’s a dumb thing to ask a 14 yo boy, but he responded telling me there are a lot of foot prints up here. So I let him proceed. He climbed across the arch and up the other side. I thought, when will I ever be able to do this again. So I walked up to the arch, took a look then proceeded myself out onto the arch. It was an experience that will not be soon forgotten. Good thing mom was not here to see this. I took a video and photos of our adventure.
After the thrill of being up on Double “O”, I came down thinking that this is awesome, the Lord is awesome and that I won’t be doing this again any time soon. Isaiah and I began the long walk back to trailhead…about 5 miles. After returning, we did not see mom and Ethan, they must had gone back to the motorhome, so Isaiah and I drank a ton of cold water (ours was very warm) and rode the bikes back to the motorhome. I told mom about our exciting climb. She was not so excited. After this, we had dinner and Isaiah put birthday candles on a piece of cake and we sang Happy Birthday to my wife. The kids had made her a card on my computer. I used power point to display it to her. It looked like the following:
We had a wonderful evening then retired for our long trek to Colorado and the highlight of the trip…Whitewater rafting! Oh yeah! Three days camping, rafting and family fun.
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