Pacific To Atlantic - Day 3 - Arches NP

Dec 25th 2008, Thursday 11:51pm - Christmas Day
RoadTrip Diary - Day 3 - Arches NP

Events of the day proved that our decision of visiting higher latitude on I-70 was worth..

When I woke up, Meha was elated by the snow outside and mentioned abt snow on top of our car.. It took me few minutes to realize whats happening..

It was snowing outside.. Though i saw the snow falling in Bryce, I had never seen one in normal city life.. The snow with day-to-day things indeed has special place.. at least for first time :)

There was probably 3 inches of snow on the car, on the road.. perfect milk white powder.. Front-bottom of the car had some ice cones formed.. Meha mentioned the whole scene was similar to movie "Fargo".. and it was precisely like that... Ploughing the snow from our car was indeed fun.. Captured few snow flakes on my palm.. Never seen these snow flakes so closely.. the shape was as seen in pictures.. On the palm, they melted so quickly..

Drive on I-70 and then to US-191 was beautiful.. nothing but snow and ice.. Meha wasn't able to keep away her handycam :)

Had heavy breakfast at Dennys, near Moab.. Didn't want to make the same mistake, we did yesterday in Vegas-Bryce.. So ate a lot :)

Town of Moab is lil bit bigger than Green River.. Arches is 5 miles north of it.

Arches NP is really wide spread as compared to Zion or Bryce.. There are Mountains on both side of the park and vast open area & basin region, like death valley, in the center.. all open area was completely under snow so wasn't able to differentiate dunes.. Most of the mountain structures like "Courthouse towers", "Possible arch with baby rock" are made from red rocks like Zion..

The area from & after "Balanced rock" became more interesting.. Balanced rock is indeedd standing on a delicate balance.. probably in next few centuries it will fall :).. Mr Natolie from Ukraine took our patel-shot.

The North and South Windows were indeed the first glimpses of real Arches National park.. Huge arch of North Window is breath taking.. The Estrada red-rock sandstone is smooth enough to be carved just by freezing water and winds.. this rock is different than Zion & Bryce NP.. To go near the North Window, walked 5-10 mins. the arch is so huge that from a sufficient distance also, I wasn't able t fit all of us in front of the arch in my camera.. The arch is really thick too.. but do have multiple cracks.. probably its thickness will reduce over the period to form a delicate one.. South window arch is in a shape of fallen snow-boot..



On the way, had a quick view of "Garden of Eden", just north of balanced rock. Around 15-20 columns of red rock were placed like in a garden.. Again structure was lil bit similar to Bryce, but were in wider area.. Also had a glimpse of "Skyline arch"..

Up South-East of NP, visited "Devils Garden", the most famous area of NP. Its a garden of lot of arches.. didn't realize that we have to hike there.. and hike turned out to be around 2 miles. The hike was completely in snow.. All two miles, we were just walking in thick snow.. it is lil bit difficult as well as tiring..and we were without water :).. but "landscape arch" at the destination was breath taking and worth the walk.. Simply unbelievable.. its recently formed in 1991, really huge and delicate. From where i was standing, it was like 45 deg wide and 40 deg in height.. Its indeed one of the best arches in NP.. Other arches on our hike were okay.. "Tunnel arch", "Pine valley arch".. Fellow hikers recommended us to skip "double-o-arch" because of landslide.

The geological structure in Arches NP is indeed interesting.. All the Estrada rock mountains are corroded in such a way that they look like curtains, standing parallel to each other.. The "Valley of Fire" shows these curtains formed from firey red rock.. With magic of weather and time, they get converted into arches.. Its simply fabulous.. Witnessed another unique structures formed by nature.. these are completely different from Bryce and Zion.. but every national park has its own place.. All these diverse formations just in couple of days.. and tomorrow heading for Monument Valley.. yet another different landscape..

Any way, entered NP around 12:15pm and left it around 4:30pm...

Have to had dinner at Dennys in Moab.. All local restaurants were closed because of Christmas day, so back-to-back sessions at dennys.. After the dinner, stated driving to south on US-191 towards Monument valley.. Decided to make early night halt in Blanding, UT... but last 30 miles towards Blanding were horrible.. Worst I have ever faced in my drive.. Altitude around 7000ft.. raining.. snow on the road.. Though snow was ploughed, still ice was there.. I was driving at 40/65 mph..and at couple of points it was just 30mphs.. visibility was probably 100/200ms for last 5 miles.. I wasn't able see ahead clearly.. also wasn't able to see the lane itself.. and on top of all these factos, Elks crossed the road.. nice :).. I was lil bit scared, so asked both Meha and Sitaram to watch the road... Finally we made it to Blanding without any trouble.. I was glad that we decided to stay there, otherwise driving further would have been a headache..

Few miles before entering Blanding UT, we hit our first 1000 miles marker of the roadtrip..

In Blanding, staying in a nice little hotel "Four corners Inn".. Decision to visit Arches NP has added a day & night from our previous plan.. So we did some re-calculations to see if we can make it to FL comfortably.. everything seems fine..

In the hotel, We copied all three days of photos and Meha's camcorder recordings.. these video recordings are fabulous.. things we discuss while driving are indeed hilarious.. while watching these videos, we really laughed a lot.. These recordings indeed preserve the moment for life time.. stupider the moment, merrier it is.. As Meha mentioned, watching these videos after few years will be much more fun !! need to buy a camcorder soon :)

Relaxed now.. Completely satisfied with day3 on roadtrip.. already feel like have seen a lot.. and still 9 more days to go :) Tomorrow heading for Monument Valley and "Four Corners"..

Today's Drive: 150 miles
State: UT

Total Miles: 1020 miles in three days
States (4): CA, NV, AZ, UT