Scenic Byway

 

While hiking in Arches (more than a year ago, can you imagine?), we had this fantastic view from one of the trails to the area beyond Arches where the fog was still hanging out for a bit longer. After we had left Arches it was still light and we decided to take UT 128 that takes you in that area. We had remembered it from several years back and were eager to drive along here again.

It is marked as a scenic byway which is quite an understatement. It is breathtaking and there was almost no trafiic.

The road follows the Colorado River which has cut deep into the rock. There are mesas and some buttes with steep cliffs and the incredible red rock that gives so much character to this landscape.

Every now and then we stopped by the side of the road just to marvel at this amazing scenery. I also wanted to look at the plants that I found quite fascinating (and I still don't know what they are).

The reflections of the rock in the Colorado were so beautiful.

How can you not feel small and insignificant in the presence of these giants?

It was getting late and the light ws waning, so we decided to turn around at this point and drive back to Moab. I think this was the exact same spot where we turned around several years earlier.

With the sun in the West, the rocks had lost much of their light and color. It was a very different experience driving back, but still exciting. I don't think we will ever tire of this desert landscape - it is written across my heart.

Back in Moab we drove directly to the Moab Diner for a delicious dinner. After a long day of hiking we were tired and hungry. Here is my contribution to Nicole's Friday Face Off - quite disheveled.

Those Crooked Trees!

 

Hopefully you are not tired of all those beautiful, crooked, dead trees in the Southwest, because I'm not done yet! Especially Arches National Park has an abundance of these trees. For this post I've chosen some of my favorites, shot over two days in this beautiful and exciting park.

Some trees only have parts of their trunk left.

Others frame the view over the desert landscape.

A thin twisted trunk is all that is left, but it makes such a stunning statement.

Some reach towards a dramatic sky.

Buddha's hand or Medusa's head?

Even as a dead tree it still has a task, framing this rock formation.

You can study the twists and turns right in front of you, and look at that beautiful bark.

Skyline Arch wouldn't be half as interesting without all this twisted, gnarly wood.

I always find it interesting and fascinating how the Juniper trees are dead on one side and carry berries on the other.

The following tree was (and still is) my favorite one. When I looked back on one of our hikes - I think it was the Windows Loop - I was immediately taken by the shape of the tree and how it framed the rock formation that was then carrying on the line with that dramatic sky behind it. Everything was in line! (You know how we photographers also look for lines.)

A few years ago I took a short class with Melanie Rivers, a Canadian artist I like very much. The main subject was trees and one of the challenges was tree woman. I never really liked what I created, but over the years she grew on me. She is for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

By the way, have you read about Nicole's new challenge "Sunday in the Art Room" (SITAR)? You'll find me there this Sunday. Until then, my friends.

Hiking in Arches

 

Maybe you remember that it was quite foggy when we arrived in Arches in the morning, but the fog eventually lifted and made way for sun and blue skies, although there were still a lot of clouds. We were now able to enjoy the Windows without any fog. (This photo is actually from the back when we were already on our hike and had escaped the crowds).

At Turret Arch we of course had to take our usual shadows photo.

Then we left the crowded area for our hike on the "primitive trail". Primitive in so far that there was no clear path made and often enough it was just rocks on the ground or cairns that would guide us.

The sky, even though blue, was covered with clouds over and over again which made for much more atmospheric photos than a plain blue sky.

However, taking those photos sometimes was a challenge because of the rapidly changing light.

The views over the park and beyond were fascinating and quite frankly breathtaking. This is such an interesting and amazing landscape that seems to change every few miles.

We were mostly alone on this hike. It seems that most people just walk up to the interesting features, but have little interest to explore this fantastic landscape beyond those. Good for us, of course.

In the distance the clouds danced around this butte and among the mesas.

When we were almost back to "civilization" we stopped for a while to enjoy the view of Double Arch in the distance.

Closer to the parking lot, these signs were everywhere, put up in the hope that people would not step onto the delicate soil that can be damaged so easily. Did people obey those signs? Sadly, there were way too many entitled jerks.

We did not hike over to Double Arch. We had done that many years ago for the sunrise and we didn't feel like joining the crowds.

With a little bit of imagination you can see a lot of figures and shapes in the rocks. Don't you think the rock on top looks like a bird?

We drove several miles through the park and then decided to hike to Skyline Arch. 

It's only a short hike, but the scenery was different - there are so many different rock formations in this park.

At the end of the road in this part of the park is a huge parking lot because many people want to hike out to Landscape Arch. We had done that hike on Christmas Day 2008, after we had stayed the night in the campgound (yes, in a tent, and it was very cold the moment we crept out of our warm sleeping bags). So we decided to take a different trail - again less crowded - and visit Pine Tree Arch where we hadn't been before. It was a lovely but cold hike - this part of the park is on a higher elevation than most of it.

On our way back we only stopped for a short while at Balanced Rock, a very fascinating rock formation. 

We mainly enjoyed watching these two ravens in the parking lot. They were highly entertaining. Look at their sweet and sassy faces - of course they are for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

We passed by Park Avenue on our way out of the park. This is a hike that we did twice before and liked very much. However, it was a bit late for this one and we still had other plans for the day.

You might have noticed that we skipped the most popular hike in the park, the one that everybody wants to take. It's the hike up to Delicate Arch, the famous landmark of the park. We had taken it into consideration, but after we had seen through our binoculars how crowded both the hiking trail and Delicate Arch were, we decided to do other hikes. See for yourself:

It looked like a tidal wave. No thank you.

We had hiked up to Delicate Arch on Christmas Eve 2008. This is what it looked like on that day, just a couple hours before sunset.

We had the entire area to ourselves...