After claiming my campsite, I drove up a dirt road to my second
planned hike. The road was advertised as a "2wd road". It was
certainly graded well enough for low-clearance vehicles, but it was
pretty badly washboarded. There were also some washes with very soft,
fine dirt, but that posed no problem for my 4wd car, even with my
balding tires. Although it was sort of neat to feel the car dig
straight down for about half an inch when taking off from a stop.
My destination was the Tower Arch. Given the minor inconvenience of
getting to the trailhead, I wasn't surprised that I saw no one else on
the entire hike. In addition, being in a less traveled area, the
trail was even more primitive. Here is a picture that I swear I took
with the camera dead level. In places, the trail was quite steep up
the rock faces.
In some places, the trail was easy to follow. In other places, it was
hard to find the next duck. In the photo on the right, there were six
ducks in the general field of view of the camera, but I can only spot
two now. Even for the two that I can see in the photo, I'm only sure
that they're ducks because I remember seeing them in person.
The tower arch was suitably impressive.
Returning toward the car, it was interesting to contrast the
ruggedness of the area I was hiking to the flatness of the area that I
drove across.
Signs similar to this are throughout Arches. They're telling you to
not walk off trail because you'll kill the delicate stuff growing on
the rocks. This one had a particularly surreal graphic.
Tower Arch
Time: 11:30am - 1:00pm
Distance: 3.4 miles
Ascent: ~500 feet
Water: 1.0 liters
