OOPS!

Delicate Arch

Canon City (pronounced canyon), Colorado

I wrote a nice long two-day blog last night, but then I made a bad keystroke and lost it. (It's somewhere, but I can't find it.) So, before I forget everything, here's an abbreviated version.

Monday, Arches NP, Utah. Disaster! Cell phone won't work! How text every couple of minutes, how send pics, how behave like other teenage girls? Crappy phone! Rotten AT&T! We'll have to go home! But wait. Think. When you hike in the desert with your cell phone in your bra because you sewed up your pockets to present a smooth appearance, maybe the phone got wet! Take it apart, dry the insides, eureka! it works, Life goes on. There is a god. Back to texting...

Arches is amazing. Lots of huge stone arches carved over (lots of ) time by rain, etc. Balance Rock. Picture a 350 ton egg balanced on a steeple of rock. Unbelievable! We hiked to famous Delicate Arch, the unofficial symbol of Utah. You've seen pictures. From pics I've seen I assumed it on the flat desert surface. You parked your car, took a short stroll, and there it was. Wrong. You park and then climb straight up for a half mile. Whew! But worth the considerable effort. Hot. When we returned to the parking area the temp. was a brisk 112 degrees.

Leaving Arches on scenic drive along Colorado River. Looking up, instead of down, at the cliffs. Like one of those movies watching people rafting in Grand Canyon. Can't adequately describe.

Overnight in Grand Junction, Colorado. Nice largish city. Then on to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park on Tuesday. Spectacular! (There's that word again.) Unlike softer sandstone  parks we've been in in Utah, this place is made of hard, metamorphic stone, like Rocky Mountains.
Very deep and steep. About 1800 feet deep at visitor center, and maybe 80 feet wide at bottom. Canyon formed by Gunnison River rather than the weather. Really something. Had a short, level hike. Can't go down; never get back up.

Now in Canon City. Will explore historic area, and then head for Las  Vegas, New Mexico.