October 7 2019
Day #1
Arches National Park (Tuesday) ~
A photographer’s paradise
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| Drive by Colorado River to Red Cliff Lodge |
We fly to Salt Lake City and drive 4 hours to Red Cliff Lodge which is 15 miles up the Colorado River from Moab. In this beautiful peaceful and remote place where we stay three nights, I expect to see cowboys like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, or Steve McQueen come galloping along. Many cowboy movies have been filmed here but it strikes me that I don’t recall any famous female cowgirl actresses! Perhaps if we had those rugged models in the 70’s we might have a female president now.
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| Front Yard of Cabin |
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| Back door View from deck |
Next morning as we drive through Arches National Park, I feel I could spend a week here hiking and searching for the perfect picture.
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| Park Avenue mid day |
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| Three Gossips on left and Court house Towers on right |
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| Courthouse Towers |
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| Three Gossips |
It is as if I am chasing the magic of this place, trying unsuccessfully to capture just the right photograph as a permanent memory in order to be able to share this experience. But somehow the photograph never measures up and seems flat and less compelling without the sound of the silence, or sensation of the sculptured rock textures and collapsed arches, or depth of color variations, or immense scale of the vista, or warmth of the sun spotlighting the arches at sunset and sunrise.
This park has no lodging facilities or food available and is completely clean of garbage or advertising signs. Those politicians in the past who worked to preserve these places for generations to come had a far reaching vision. John and I discuss how Trump would see this as an opportunity for restaurants and hotels or mining in an effort to make money. This beauty is priceless. We try to leave politics behind and I don’t read the paper as it seems to distract from the experience.
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| Showing where fallen arches occurred |
Geologists’ Story: It is humbling to learn about the fate of the arches and the power of time, an incredible story going beyond a human timescale, back hundreds of millions of years of erosion. I learn about fins, needles, arches, towering spires and crack meters that can measure tension between rock fins and cracks and indicate risks for rock falls. There are over 2,000 arches in this landscape. It is hard to imagine on this sunny, calm day with a clear blue sky that extreme temperatures and underground salt movement and violent forces have resulted in this magical Disney-like place with huge rocks balanced atop a tiny rock base looking precarious.
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| Looks precarious |
New arches are forming as old ones crumble and rock slabs fall and change the rock design due to relentless weathering. I have a geologist friend who loves to talk about rocks. I find I have developed a new understanding of his fascination for rocks and wish he was with us to explain more.
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| Balanced Rock |
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| I climb to Turret Arch and a Tourist takes my picture |
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| Windows and fins |
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| Petrified Dunes |
We stop at viewpoints to see:
Three Gossips
Courthouse Towers
La Sal Mountains
Petrified Dunes
Balanced Rock
Garden of Eden
North and South Windows
Turret Arch
Upper Delicate Arch
After our morning adventure we return to Moab for lunch at a taco stand. John reads the news on his I-pad and I buy book written by Anne Hillerman who is Tony Hillerman’s daughter. I used to read Tony’s Southwestern mystery books set in Navajo culture when we both had transcultural psychiatry grants to work on the Navajo reservation while I was in graduate school and John in medical school. I am thrilled to know that 38 years later Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Navajo characters in Hillerman’s books are still alive and solving mysteries in this desert landscape with tribal lore. I am even more delighted to see Anne Hillerman has developed a new female detective character who is solving some of the corruption in the tribal and government funds.
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