After the excitement that was finals, my dad came down and whisked me away to Southern Utah, where we embarked on a two-day hiking extravaganza!! Day one: we leave my apartment at ten, and make it into green river around noon-thirty if I remember correctly. After a quick lunch and checking into our hotel, we decided to go explore a slot canyon my dad had picked out for us. It was a little bit of a cloudy day, but there wasn't a flash flood warning, so we figured we would be safe (For those who may not know-- slot canyons are really narrow little canyons (sometimes only inches wide) that are pretty tall/deep. When it rains, they are EXTREMELY dangerous to be in as all the rain from all the surrounding area flows into these super narrow stretches-- creating flash floods that are extremely dangerous.)
Of course, as soon as we get to the end of the slot, where it's super narrow and dark, a huge peal of thunder rolls over us. Yup. Thunder. We start to book it out of there, running as fast as we can through loose sand, narrow red rock, and against 30 mph winds blowing against us and throwing dust into our eyes. It started to rain, then it started to hail. Yeah, I was pretty sure I was going to DIE there for a few seconds. :p but it didn't rain very hard, and we got out of the canyon without too much trouble-- just bruised from the hard-hitting hail, eyes sore from the sand, and lungs bursting a little.
But we made it out alive, and went on our next adventure. After stopping in a gas station store that was located INSIDE a red rock formation, we headed over to right outside Goblin Valley State park and went on an amazing free-roaming adventure across rolls of white slick-rock to Wildhorse Window-- a large alcove with a hole in the ceiling. It was a blast, because we were really just climbing up and down slick rock, trying to find our way to the destination. It was extremely windy, but on the way back, the sun came out and the white rock just glowed against the dark blue, stormy sky. It was gorgeous.
Thursday saw us in Arches National Park (and near abouts). We started out the morning visiting Corona Arch, just outside of the national park. It was an easy, short hike over some sand and slick rock to an GIGANTIC arch. WAY bigger than anything in Arches National Park! It was very gorgeous and definitely worth seeing. Recommended to anyone going down that direction.
After Corona, we went into the national park and started out on the Devil's Garden loop: first major stop is landscape arch, where most people turn around. But the trail continues, more difficult, over sandstone with Cairnsc (spelling?) marking the path a lot of the time. The loop also go past the window-wall arch (now collapsed), Navajo and Partition arch, then Double O arch. This is technically the end of the "loop," and you can choose to turn around or go back the "primitive loop." We chose the latter, and went to all side stops as well. Dark Angel is a tall obelisk covered in desert varnish (so it is black) From there we followed a tip from a guidebook my dad bought and found some fantastic petroglyphs. Stopped by primitive arch, clambered down steep slickrock cliffs made extremely slippery by wet sand from other hikers, and went around a 20-foot wide mystery-deep pothole of greenish water via steeep slick-rock around it. It was an exciting adventure. We somehow managed to turn a 7-mile loop trip into a ten mile loop trip. Yeah, we're awesome.
We had planned to go hike to Delicate Arch that evening at sunset (best time to see it, so they say. Also, Delicate Arch is the one featured on the Utah license plate :p ) but we were both pretty exhausted by that point. we decided to just go to the look-out instead. As it turned out, the look-out trail was also about a half-mile hike up hills and stairs!! But it did provide us with a very wonderful view.
Spent all of friday driving back home to Washington. Gotta love my state!
Saturday I went shopping for some more business clothes-- I need some for my trip to Japan this summer, and Saturday was really the only chance I would have before leave for the orient. Needless to say, it was kind of important I find some stuff. And it was a little stressful. Especially since I wasn't have ANY luck. I went to wallmart, Target, TJ Maxx, and Burlington before FINALLY going to Shopko-- where I found a TON of great, stylish business clothes. the funny thing is, I was thinking the whole time "man, I should really go to shopko!!" That's what I get, I guess!! :P
And now I'm sitting out on the porch of the condo in Hawaii we're staying at for the week, listening to the ocean, and occasionally looking up into the vast expanse of sea and sky. The weather is wonderful. Everything is beautiful.
I realized today as I was on the 6-hour flight that I would fly home to WA next week for 6 hours, and then two days later fly for 12 hours to get to Japan. Too much travel time in two weeks!!!
Loves!
Great pictures! I've never been to any of these places, despite having grown up in UT. Looks like you had fun.
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