The Final Arch

When I get off the trail I’m starving. I mean, c’mon, beef jerky isn’t the most filling of breakfasts. That, combined with the hike not having been the easiest, has my stomach roaring for food. I was thinking that I’d do up some soup, but the thought of how long that’s gonna take me- combined with the likelihood that I’d run out of fuel before it boils- has me opt for plan B. I swing over to the "Fiery Furnace" overlook for lunch, open up the vacuum pack of tuna fish, squirt in some mayo packets, and get the spoon out.

Oh, you think that’s bad? I swing down to the Delicate Arch parking lot and wash it down with a few swigs of 12 year old Jameson. In retrospect, it was a bad combination. Hell, at the time it was a bad combination. But, I figured that I’d made enough foolish decisions so far that one more seemed appropriate. My stomach stopped liking me.

Delicate Arch is the one that you always see in pictures of the park. It’s a mile and half hike, all uphill one way and downhill the other. The bottom of the trail has this old homestead and a few petroglyphs. The farmstead is some old Civil War vet who moved out to get to a climate better for his aches- until one of his daughters comes and bitches about the conditions and makes him return to Ohio. The glyphs had my hopes up, but it turns out that they’re only from the early 1800's. Yeah, that’s a lot older than me, but the one’s I’d seen in Death Valley were considerably older, more interesting, and rewarding. After all, it was an eight mile hike to get to those ones...

I start hiking up. The first part is pretty easy dirt trail. Then you get to this big ol’ sandstone dome that you have to walk up, the only trail being denote by small stone cairns. On the way down I could see where a trail was slowly being worn in the stone, but on the way up there was too much glare. I pass some people going down, and a few going up. I pass this couple of gorgeous asian chicks who I’d seen on the Devil’s Garden trail. The reason I mention this is because while they were gorgeous, all I could think about was how frickin’ stupid they had to be to wear high heeled boots hiking. It just ruins it to see such a pretty picture and then be forced to factor in that they’re really dumb. Sigh...

Towards the end I start coming upon these giant half-bowl shaped areas that the wind has carved out of the stone. It was almost like the wind was trying to make a skate park. After those, I get to the thin ledge that winds around the top of the stone. With the wind and the snow, I feel like I’m making my pilgrimage to see the wise man on the mountain up in Shangri-La. I get to the post, hop the small ridge that separates the trail, and I’m there.

This place is hard to comprehend for me. It’s another of the wind half-bowls, but huge- football field sized, and probably at least 50 feet from bottom to the lip. It’s also kinda steep, but with my boots I make it alright. Delicate Arch is off to the southeast part, right on the edge of a drop off. It’s really steep and wet on either side of the arch, so it’s a while before I work up the guts to try it.

Another part of the hard to comprehend part is the vibe- with the half dozen other people up there just chillin’, it was like some weird picnic. There were some people getting into the arch when I showed up, including this one chick who was freaking out so bad that she started that maniacal giggle you see right before people start crying and screaming. She made it, though, so I give her credit. I check out some of the edges of the bowl, and give myself some serious jitters (remember, vertigo and acrophobia). There’s some steep canyon around that place. Either way, it was good vibe, and I hang out there for about an hour. I’d have taken more pictures of the arch, but the dinks who were there when I got there didn’t leave the entire time.

I head back down, and the sun is getting low, so I figure that I have just enough time to hit the one mile trail around the Window Arches and snap some sweet sunset photos. These are some really big arches, but they’re just not as impressive to me as the other ones were. I don’t know if it was that I was desensitized after the other arches, if the proportions somehow made them seem lesser, or I was just suffering from having tuna fish and whiskey for lunch. Either way, I finish up the hike and get in the car to find a good pull of to catch the sun set.

Well, it figures, by the time I find any pull out the sun has set. This kinda sucks, because I think it would have made for some sweet photos. I do look east, though, and I see a mountain range away off. The sun is still setting on them, and they’re turning this pale shade of purple. With the snow on them, they’re beautiful- but foreboding. You see, I can almost feel the wind on them from where I am. The snow on the most northerly mountain is being blown almost straight across to the next one south. It’s eerie know that those winds must be incredibly strong, and thinking that I’m looking real-time at an incredibly inhospitable environment.

I watch the mountains until the sun has completely set, and head into Moab for a post-trail dinner. Though I hadn’t really hit the hiking all that hard, at best making 30 miles the whole trip, I figure that I’m hungry and it’s tradition to gorge when the trips done. I was thinking asian (fried rice sounded so damned good), but can’t find anything that doesn’t look fancy and settle for Pizza Hut. Whatever I didn’t finish would just go in a box and be grub for the way back, keeping me from needing to stop for food. Appetite satisfied, I gas up and head back to the interstate. End of Friday, January 7th.

Next time, The Drive Home and The Last Day.