August 28, 2015

Arches NP

Arrived in Moab, UT about noon yesterday.  Checked in to campground, had lunch, and drove to Arches visitor center to get oriented.  Armed with maps and info. we drove into the park a few miles to see some of the sights that could be done from the road.  Back to Moab to do laundry then back to carbus for dinner and to bed at a reasonable time to be ready for the morning.

Viewing and photographing  landscape objects is all about lighting.  Sun light from above or behind gives flat or dark pictures. Best light is shining on object and preferably from fairly low elevation.  Lights subject and creates shadows for contrast.  Different spots in Arches NP are best viewed at different times of the day.  We had two main photographic sites in mind.  Both involved driving a long distance and then hiking to the landmark.

Left for park at 5:30 am this morning.  Twenty minutes to entrance station and then forty minutes to end of road at far end of park to start our hike.  Sun was just about to rise.  Comfortable temperature for our half mile walk

Start of trail

 

Early in the morning these guys are everywhere.  Must have seen 25-30 on our short hike.  Half hour later, no sign of them.

 

Easy half mile hike to base of

Landscape Arch

Won’t be an arch much longer.  That thin area looks pretty shaky.

 

On the hike back to the parking lot we visited several more arches.  Then we worked our way back out of the park looking at all the sites we could find.  Went back to one area we saw the day before but this time with better light.

Double Arch

 

Balanced Rock – duh.

 

 

Drove spur road to parking area for our afternoon goal to check it out then back to Moab to relax and prepare. 

Left at 3:30 for park.  After entering we first went to a spot we had been to in the morning in order to take picture in better light.

Fiery Furnace.  Would have been a little later but we had places to go.

 

Then another drive to a view point for our goal and then to parking area.  We started hiking at 4:50pm.  At home we usually start our day with a three mile walk which we do in less than an hour.  The usual route include numerous ups and downs which we handle comfortably.  This afternoons hike is 3.2 miles round trip.  My hope was to reach our goal about 6:00 to have good lighting for a while before we hiked back.  The 1.6 mile hike to the goal is all up hill.  Gains 500’ from start to end.  The trail is also totally in the sun.  Little better in late afternoon than mid-day but still hot.  High around 95 degrees today.  Trail starts at above 5000’.  Sue has some respiratory issues that are generally well controlled with occasional meds.  About 3/8 of a mile into hike the above factors started to work on her.  At points she was limited to 30-40 yard stretches between rests.  But she hung in.  Took an hour and a half to get there but this was the reward.

Delicate Arch.  Hey, that would look good on a license plate.  Oops, been done already.

 

Proof she was there.

Purposely did not take picture of all the fellow hikers at the arch site but there were a LOT of them.  Had to catch photos between people waiting to stand under the arch.

Sunset today was about 7:40 pm.  We started down about 7:00 to be sure we had lots of light for hike.  We took our time coming down and were only passed by five people going down.  We passed maybe 30 people who were going up.  The sun set when we were about half way down.  Dusk is 45 minutes.  After sunset we still passed people going up.  When we got to the parking lot it was twice as full as when we started up.  The point: there were going to be a large number of people descending a difficult trail, marked only by rock cairns, in the dark.  We saw no flashlights at all.  Saw a number of flip flops, even some bare feet, and at least one cane but no one prepared to navigate in the dark.