(No) Sympathy for the Devil

Day 19 – Moab, UT

The Devil’s Garden and the Fiery Furnace.  By names alone, it would seem as if our night from hell had continued to the next day.  Fortunately, these two menacing sounding locales are actually two incredibly beautiful sections of Arches National Park that we were able to visit today.  If they are in fact the Devil’s real-estate, well, he’s a lucky dude.  

After getting situated at the Best Western last night, we went over our plan for today.  Since we had to now make time to tear down and then reassemble our camp, we decided our best bet would be to get going super early.  It would also help us beat the heat, which has been pretty intense.  So we set our alarms for 4:30, which was ambitious since we finally got to sleep sometime after midnight.  When 4:30 rolled around, we once again realized that waking up at 4:30 is a terrible idea, so we slept until 6:30.

In the Devil's Garden, much happier than last night.

Once we finally got ready and checked out of the Best Western, we made our way over to Arches National Park, which is just a little northeast of Moab.  Our first stop of the day was to do the Devil’s Garden Loop.  The main trail is an out and back trail that takes you past many of the park’s most famous arches.  There are also two spurs that go off of the main trail to four other arches and a primitive trail loop.  We decided to do it all, giving ourselves a 7.2 mile hike to begin the day.

The hike was incredible and we especially enjoyed the primitive loop, as we were almost the only people on it.  Lots of scrambling, lots of slickrock, and lots of sand, but still a beautiful hike.  Along the way, we saw numerous arches, which I will show you instead of trying to describe:

Pine Arch in the Devil's Garden

Amy going through Double-O Arch.

Navajo Arch

We both really liked private arch, which was the only major arch (there are over 2,500 arches total in the park) on the primitive loop.  Navajo and Partition arches were also very cool.  Ok, they were all really cool; how do you pick favorites?

Landscape Arch

We finished the trail and then quickly hoped into our car to go retrieve our tent, which we had hastily left the previous evening at our original campground due to fears of our impending murders as part of satanic ritual of some sort.  I’ve seen way to many horror movies.  When we arrived at our tent, I had even odds on one of the following things happening: nothing, a person inside, a dead person inside, signs of a satanic ritual inside.  Fortunately, it was nothing.  Interesting to note, however, that there still were not any other campers there and the office had a posting saying that it was “closed” today.  Very weird.  So we quickly packed everything up and made our way over to our ne campground, the KOA (Kamoground of America – don’t ask me about the spelling) Moab.  Our new campground had clean bathrooms with plenty of privacy and lots of people around.  We were happy.

Looking in at the Fiery Furnace from the outside.

We quickly set up our stuff and then headed back to Arches for the Fiery Furnace tour, something I had been so incredibly excited about since we planned this trip.  And here is where we had our only snag of the day.  The Fiery Furnace tour is Ranger guided and requires a ticket.  Only 25 are given out every day.  Months ago when I looked into this, I was only able to get one ticket for the entire time we were in Moab.  I asked the lady on the phone about the possibility of being able to get both of us on the tour even though we, at the time, only had one ticket.  When we checked in at the visitor center, they told us that rangers would not take extra people (like the phone lady said), but if someone cancels or doesn’t show, we could have their ticket.  All we needed to do is check back before 3 pm.  So we checked back at noon.  New person says that no one has cancled, but we might be able to get someone to donate their ticket if they don’t feel like using it.  We should check back.  So we check back at 3.  Another new person tells us that, no, we cannot have an unclaimed ticket – that needs to be cleared with the ranger at the trailhead.   So at 4, we meet the Ranger at the trailhead and ask him about both of us getting on the tour.  He says that no, he cannot take anyone without a ticket even if there are no-shows .  Only 19 people show up, so there are, technically, 6 empty spots.  He says he cannot let Amy come.  And then never collects the tickets.  So if we hadn’t said anything, we would have both gotten on no problem.

But we did say something, so we did have a problem: one ticket, two people.  Amy, being the incredible person she is, insists that I go on the tour and she will drive around the park to check out some of the stuff we missed.  So, for the first time in almost three weeks, we go our separate ways.  I’ll let her tell you about what she did:

The North Window.  Just kidding - its the South Window. 

Hi everybody, it’s Amy.  I am not the writer, so sorry to those of you who have been enjoying Christopher’s descriptions and bear with me as I try to describe a bit of what I enjoyed after dropping Chris off for his hike at Fiery Furnace.  We had more rain than I think either of us expected, but luckily his hike was not cancelled so I headed to the Windows Section of the park, as we planned to do Delicate Arch for sunset.  I met the rain clouds again at the Windows, so it was a rather quick trip.  I went to the end of the windows loop and began with Turret Arch and then continued to the South and North Window.  I used my phone for pictures and very much enjoyed the view, however as I was about to set out on the Primitive Loop to get a view of the windows from the other direction, the wind picked up and rain began to fall, so I thought it best to take the more direct route back and enjoy some other formations in the area.  I took the trail out to Double Arch which looks incredible and I hope, even with the gray clouds, the pictures turn out.  I stopped at the Garden of Eden as well, which as you can imagine is more rocks.  The dark clouds continued to look ominous and I headed back to get Christopher, hoping he hadn’t had any flooding.  No worries… his area of the park was clearing up nicely.  So I also took some pictures of the Fiery Furnace from the viewpoint.  It will be interesting to compare the views he got on the hike.

Double Arch, not to be confused with the Double-O Arch.

(As you can see I am a bit of a rambler… I was told to write a paragraph about my 3 hour time.)  We are having a wonderful time and I am so thankful we have been able to do this as well as pleased to say we are still enjoying each other… but we are each so wonderful that is to be expected.  I would also just like to put a thank you in here to my wonderful husband for writing each day.  It helps me keep the days straight and I appreciate him taking the time so we remember our adventure.



Maneuvering through the Fiery Furnace.

After a 15 minute weather delay, I headed off on the Fiery Furnace with the ranger and my (18!!!!!) co-hikers.  The Fiery Furnace is an area of extremely compact pillars, arches, and canyons.  If you looked at an aerial view, it would look like someone had taken a big rake and ran it across the ground.  Some grooves are as deep as 200 feet, with canyons ranging in width from 100 feet across to shoulder-width apart.  Although the hike was three hours long, we probably did not travel more than two miles.  Much of the trip consisted of the Ranger leading us to a place where we could congregate and then discussing one of the four major components of the area: soil, water, vegetation, and time.  The lecture was fascinating.  I learned about how cynobacteria creates a crust on the soil that holds it down.  I learned about the role plate tectonics had in the creation of arches.  All very interesting.  The hike itself was also very cool.  Some people in the group struggled with some of the climbing and scrambling so we moved very slow, but working our way through the maze was fun.  However, it was not as amazing as I had hoped.  Granted, my expectations were really high, but it just wasn’t as great as I thought it could have been.  I was mad that Amy hadn’t been able to come.  The weather was bad so the colors were muted.  And we moved really slowly, so we weren’t able to explore as much as I would have liked.  But still a good experience.

A look up at Surprise Arch from inside the Fiery Furnace.

We met back up after the tour and made our way to the Delicate Arch trailhead so we could climb up there for sunset (an idea that at least 100 other people also had, apparently).  The trail to get there was hard; straight uphill, mostly over slickrock.  But the view from the top was incredible.  Again, it was cloudy so we didn’t get the full effect.  But still an unbelievable way to end the day.  (Side note: one of the best parts was how the crowd would heckle anyone who walked over to the arch to get their picture taken with it.  One woman was lying down, modeling, having multiple pictures taken against one of the arch posts, oblivious to the furor she was causing until the heckle became a roar of anger.  So funny).

Delicate Arch at sunset, a lot closer than last night.

We made our way down and headed back to Moab for celebratory hot fudge sundaes before heading back to camp.  As we were eating, the weather picked up again.  The wind literally raged and dust blew everywhere.  As soon as we stepped out of the showers, I think we were already dirty again.  The lightening is also incredible.  Here’s to hoping that the tent holds up through all of this.