July 18th – Friday –(Very Hot, Arid, 100+ degrees)
We woke up early and departed early to finish the arches and make the 500 mile trek to Canõn City (pronounced Canyon City). Our last arch is Delicate arch which is what Utah has become famous for. It is on most of their memorabilia and the entry and exit to the state sign posts. It is a 5.2 mile hike roundtrip through the hot desert. We left at around 8:00am from our site in the motorhome and drove to the parking lot. We saw the empty riverbed that was gushing the day before from the rains. They had flash flooding yet today it is bone dry. The good news is that at 8am it is still cool and the sun was low. We hoped to get some nice pictures of the arch up close. We filled our water bottles and left the parking lot. Our first stop was Wolf ranch, a historic site that contained the home of Mr. Wolf who came with his family to settle in this area and his home is still standing today. His home was the size of our motorhome. Yikes!
The trail leading to delicate arch is steep and long and requires some serious rock scrambling. Fortunately for me, my Adirondack experience lead me to know that Carons marked the way and to the casual observer, they looked like pretty rock formations but to me they marked the way on bare rock. I showed my kids and wife them and told them not to disturb them since they were there for a reason. I think they told me they knew this already, you know how Bailey’s are.
Once we reached the the delicate arch area, we were treated to a spectacular sight. I had to sit down and take in its beauty. When looking at the arch just right, it looks like a snake bending over to get the people sitting below a rock. See for yourself. How this could had ever formed is beyond me. Well after appreciating its beauty, we went down to it to get pictures. At the base of the arch is a uge bowl like formation that of course both kids had to descend into. 
On our way back we stopped at some very early Indian petrographs. They were in remarkable condition given that they were a 1000 years old.
We saw bus loads of people on their way in and were glad we did this hike early. We got on the road around 10am and headed east for Canõn City, Colorado. It was a while before we came upon the Arkansas River. The Arkansas River is one of the longest in the US with its origin in the Rockies. It originates at Mt Elbert the highest point in Colorado at 14,443 feet above sea level and is about 150 miles long and flows through 5 states where it dumps into the Mississippi around Rosedale Arkansas on the border. The road to Canõn City for the most part followed the river and made for a beautiful car ride, but we had our doubts as to it being a good whitewater rafting river. As we approached this area, the red returned to the mountains and we could see the Sange Christos (blood of Christ in Spanish) mountain range and the Collegiate Range of the Rocky Mountains. I wonder if its because of the red color that the Spainards named them the blood of Christ.
Well after going through rock tunnels and following the Arkansas for a while, we eventually arrived at Canon City area and stayed at the Royal Gorge RV park across the street from Echo Canyon Whitewater River rafting Company. Mom did laundry and we all went to bed knowing the next day would start early. We needed to be ready by 7:45am.
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. 
Along the way, we saw signs warning us about visibility and wind storms. I thought about this for a minute and it did not register. Many signs along the desert roads were strage to us being from Syracuse and having never driven these roads. Well my wife was driving and pointed out a sand or dust devil that had kicked up as a result of the strong winds blowing across the desert region. We saw many of these. I put a faint red circle around the funnel.
As we got closer to Moab, We saw the familiar rock formations that make up this area, sandstone mesas. We found out later that the structures were called sandstone fins. We saw most orientation movies in the national park visitor centers which did a great job on prepping you for what was in the park. After entering Arches, again our annual pass did the job nicely for moving quickly through the park entrance, we stopped at the visitor center to find out if there were any ranger guided tours we wanted to do. We have come to find out that all national parks have the same process. Get a brochure/map of the park, talk to a ranger about special events, find out what ranger guided tours were going on, watch the orientation movie to determine what we should see, then go see sights or find our campground. We are staying at the Devil’s Garden. Its called this because of the heat, but not today, we have overcast skies and a cold front is coming through. As we drove to our campsite, the plan is to see several attractions. We took out our map and began looking. First there was the Organ, then the Three Gossips, then Sheep Rock then the Tower of Babel.
We then traveled to balance rock. We tried several fun things like balancing it on our finger, then in the palm of our hand, but the best picture was by itself. The kids also built their own balanced rocks. I guess this is taboo in a national park since once a place is designated a national park, the rangers do their best to make sure it is never disturbed. This includes forest fires and the clean up after. You will find evidence of forest fires in most if not all national parks, especially in this arid area. We were shocked to see all the trees standing and left in place whenever a forest fire struck. In fact you can not collect wood for fires in national parks. All dead wood is protected and there is a fine to move it. I am not kidding. So building a balanced rock replica was taboo.
We continued to drive towards Devil’s Garden and saw many neat sandstone formations along the way. Oh yeah, when we watched this movie, they admitted that thousands of years of erosion could had made these beautiful formations whereas granite canyons and mesa take millions even billions of years. So much for the Bible’s creation theory. So far I am not seeing arches, hence the name of the park. Then we stumbled on the following “could be” or “would be” arches. The thing about arches is they could be here today and gone tomorrow or caves today and arches tomorrow.
We then went to our first arches, North Window, South Window and Turret Arch. My kids quickly found that they could scramble up the sandstone with little problem. It is getting down that was harder. I had to keep an eye on Isaiah. He is getting tall and can scale more rock then I thought. Ethan was much more reserved. Isaiah and Ethan scrambled up Notrth Window rather easily but South window was unreachable…so I thought.
We then went to Double “O” arch. I thought here again that neither hole would be accessible but my kids proved me wrong. I tink you can see why they called it double “O”. As you can see the sky became cloudy and it was just not overcast, they were dark and ominous. I felt like it may rain, but in the desert who knows. As I have described earlier, you can look eastward and see lightening and hear thunder, then look westward and the sky is as blue as can be.
We then went to Turret Arch where something strange occurred. Aaaa…Rain! The rangers told us that this part of Arizona hardly ever sees rain, and when they do its usually for 5 min. As the clouds rolled in, it looked like it would stay awhile. At first it was light and on again off again. Ethan digged down to see that the wet sand was only surface deep. We continued to the Turret Arch depite the rain. It actually felt good. 
Then as we were climbing into the Arch, it began to hail. Ice the size of watermelon seeds fell from the sky. We saw lightening near us and heard multiple cracks of thunder. I of course counted the interval between the lightening strike and the thunder for distance. 1 mile for every second of interval. We decided to remain under the arch to stay dry. The boys hid under a large rock.
At first there was about 6 second intervals, then 3 then none! The storm was right above us. I looked up to see large bolts of lightening. We decided to split and it is a good thing we did. I found out later that although rock is usually a good insulator, the arches caused lightening to travel down them…kind of like following the curve of the arch. We are glad now we left. As we were driving north to Devil’s Garden campground, we saw a sight that is very rare in Arches according to the rangers; a flash flood. This happens when there is a down pour for an extended period of time…say 20 minutes or more. What had turned into a daily sighting (dry river beds) became a raging river.
As we drove up to our site in Devil’s Garden the rain had stopped and we could see clearing in the horizon, but for now it was a mere 75 degrees and we were loving it. We found our site number 54 of 54! We had just made it and it was a beautiful site right in the sandstone fins. We saw a ranger drivng about and found out that the lightening we had seen and heard near by hit a tree in site 51 only 3 sites over! The tree had caught fire and a Boy Scout troop had noticed it and reported it. The occupants had not seen it hit. Later I saw the occupant, her name is Janet. I began to talk with her about the fire then the conversation turned to our trip and as it turns out, they are believers, we connected immediately and we invited them over for birthday cake, coffee and tea. Janet introduced us to Dwight, her husband avid campers since retiring and have seen most if not all 50 states and then some. They actually camp as in set up a tent and do it all the hard way…I am impressed. I took some pictures including the tree that was hit!
We ended the day with Isaiah blowing out his candles, great fellowship with Janet and Dwight and a full moon. 
