day four...
...of the two weeks 5 year anniversary road trip.
this one is a day late as we have been internetless for the last day *gasp* i think it will be easier to do these a day behind anyhow cause from here on out we have late night stuff i might want to tell you about and posting at 2 am is not an option for me :0) so the next mornin' might be better.
anyhow yesterday we went back out to arches national park again and did the "devils garden" hike. it said it was rated "strenuous" and i have to tell ya i was a little scared that all they would find of me were my parched and bird pecked bones in three months. but i threw caution to the wind and strapped on my courage and hiked out with the chad. it was totally worth it!
before this hike i thought "enh, arches is fine but not fantastic" but after the hike i had a totally different impression of the park for sure. it was much more majestic than i had origionally thought. this hike takes you up a narrow ridge like a bazillion feet in the air. it was kinda terrifying. you have to scramble up rocks and follow these little rock piles called "cairns" they are like trail markers cause there is NO trail. you just have to look around and go "theres the next one!" and walk that way and look for the next little pile of rocks when you get there.
we saw the biggest arch in the park called landscape arch. its a foot ball field across! you cant walk under it anymore cause in the 90's these folks were camping under the arch and they heard all this crazy craking and ran away! thanks god cause a 65 foot slab of rock fell off the arch right onto their tent! so now they, rightly, consider it unstable.the furthest went was to the double o arches and that hike round trip was 5 miles. my favorite park of the hike though was the view from the ridge (that pic of me and chad is on there) and this arch called partition arch. the pix below are from that part of the hike.
