Arches National Park!

This was our 3^rd trip to Moab. Our first trip was in 2014 where we camped for the weekend with our son Forrest and his family, our second trip was in 2015 where we spent a few days visiting our friends Dino and Lisa. This time….we were alone.

After leaving Lake Powell we spent the night at Sand Island BLM Campground in Utah. This was a nice little park with several big rig sites right along the river.

We arrived at OK RV Park in Moab the next day. This is the campground where Dino and Lisa worked for two seasons and once we mentioned we were friends of theirs we were given the royal treatment! Given the best spot in the park, a welcome basket that included caviar, Champaign and chocolate covered strawberries, free passes to the spa and turndown service every night. Well, maybe not but the owners and their former co-workers do miss them.

At $20/night with Passport America this is a great little park to stay at for a few nights.

We were staying 2½ days/3 nights so we thought we would get a couple of hikes/jeep adventures in but between the chores and rain we only ended up getting one adventure in. But what an adventure it was! Friends John and Pam have been here multiple times so we searched their blog for the ultimate hike. After reading several of their posts and texting back and forth we chose two hikes in Arches National Park; Tower Arch and the Fiery Furnace ranger led hike if we had time.

We had never been to Arches so we were looking forward to the visit. There are over 2,000 arches in Arches National Park. I am happy to report that only have about 1,995 left to see! Needless to say we have many visits ahead of us if we plan on seeing any more.

At the Visitors Center we discovered that the Fiery Furnace hikes were not starting for a couple of weeks so we just got our Passport Book stamped and off we went! The Tower Arch trailhead is in the northwest corner of the park meaning we had to drive almost the whole length to get to the trailhead. Perfect opportunity to see the varying landscape within the park!

We had originally planned on taking the 3.5 mile roundtrip hike to the arch but while reading the trail description on the way to the trailhead we discovered that there is a jeep trail that leads to another trailhead only .3 miles from the arch. The description said that it was a rough jeep trail requiring 4 wheel drive, high clearance and was often impassible after rain storms. Looks like the perfect opportunity to do a combo adventure!

When we left the main road onto the jeep trail it was smooth sailing for the first mile or so. We thought this was going to be a piece of cake and we would be at the .3 mile trailhead in no time. We soon learned at we were wrong……very very wrong. What started out as a 25mph gravel road quickly turned into a 1-5mph rock crawl.

The road started out pretty smooth

Then it got rough.... these pictures just don't do it justice

Headed up!

View from the top.....with the road leading off

On a difficulty scale of 1-10 I would give 5 or 6. There were no real pucker moments but it was rough and you had to go very slow and pick your spots or you would find yourself hung up. There were several times Barb got out to take pictures and was walking faster than I was crawling over the rocks. We spent the next hour and a half in 4 low crawling up and around obstacles as we made our way to the trailhead. It was a blast!

There were views in every direction!

Tower Arch is just to the right of the Jeep

Once we got to the trailhead we could see Tower Arch right in front of us. The challenge was getting to it. There is a sign that tells you to stay on the marked trail which we had no problem doing for a while until it lead to a slick rock section where the trail totally disappeared. After a little trial and error we found the right trail and soon we were at the arch!

Which way to the arch?

Barb and I split up and did some solo exploring. I went up behind Tower Arch.....

You can see Barb in the lower right corner (blue dot)

....while she went to the right where there is another smaller arch that is worth exploring.

If you look really close you can see me on a ledge in the middle under the arch

The second arch in the area

When we met up an hour or so later back at the jeep we found that our .3 mile hike had turned into a over 2 miles of hiking and exploring.  We wanted a different jeep trail on the way out. This trail led south 9 miles and west another 7 before it intersected highway 191 outside the park. There are several areas of soft sand so only north/south travel is recommended on this road. After going through it and seeing the tracks left by those trying to go north, I don’t know how you could ever do it.

Along the way we passed Eye of the Whale arch, another one we can cross off our list!

After exiting the park (after about mile 4 of our westerly leg) we found ourselves in the Willow Springs boondocking area. We had wanted to check it out to see if this is somewhere we would want to stay on future trips. It was packed! Kids, 4 wheelers, dirt bikes…doesn’t anyone work or go to school anymore? It must have been spring break at school or something. There were a few spots that our rig would fit but if it is always this crowded we will pass.

The yellow line shows our route for the day. We entered on the south end and exited to the west

We got back to OK RV Park at about 4pm meaning our entire trip took about 6 hours. This is about our limit for leaving the dogs alone so it worked out well.

The next day it rained almost all day so we read, did some laundry and walked the town just to get out and about. Being cooped up in the rig that third day cut into our adventure time and made this trip to this area seem short. Time to move on and make our way north!  

Antelope Canyon,and Lake Powell a Top 10 Adventure!

Our main reason for coming to the Page area was to visit the infamous Antelope Canyon. After reviewing the reviews and information from both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons we chose to tour the lower through Dixie Ellis' Tours. From everything we read the tours are in vastly different types of slot canyons and we were prepared to be wowed!

What we weren’t prepared for was being wowed even before got to the canyon. We were told by several RV friends that the Lone Rock camping area was one of their favorites and within minutes of arriving it quickly made it to our top 10 as well!

We were told there was camping right on the beach or a little higher up where the views are just as spectacular. We were warned that if we did dare to take the rig down to the beach area make sure we stayed on the hard packed area or you will find yourself shelling out hundreds of dollars in towing fees. After arriving and seeing how cool the beach camping looked there was no question where we were headed!

We parked the rig up top and scouted the area with the jeep picking our spot and the best route to get there. Our friends were right, stray a few feet off the hard pack and you would be axle deep before you knew it.

We arrived on a Tuesday and enjoyed the afternoon on the beach. The dogs ran and swam for hours loving the freestyle beach life. With rain forecasted the next two days we scheduled our canyon tour for Friday morning.

We were delighted when the sun greeted us the next morning and the rain held off for most of the day. We took advantage of it by breaking out the kayak and spending a few hours on the water. Like many reservoirs, the water was crystal clear and the shorelines were dotted with hidden inlets and canals. Having recently purchased Filmora (video editing software) I took this opportunity to create a 4 minute video of me inflating our kayak and some of our time on the water.  

First stop was Lone Rock....

 Then on to some of the hidden inlets......

View back towards our rig

You can paddle in and around many of the boulders

The waves create weird formations

We also got out to see Horseshoe Bend a famous bend in the Colorado. It is a 1½ mile round trip hike to the rim. There was a steady stream of people as several Asian tour buses were in the parking lot....

Even with these crowds it was definitely worth seeing. No guard rails whatsoever. We were surprised to hear that the last death here was March 2010 when a Greek man fell 600' to the floor.

The rain did come however and with it, the wind. The ensuing sand storm reduced visibility to about ¼ mile. I am guessing the winds were in excess of 40mph rocking the rig relentlessly. We put the dish down and spent the afternoon reading books and watching movies off the DVR.

The next morning we were up early and ready for our tour of Lower Antelope Canyon! The tour itself is $25/person plus $8/person Navajo fee (plus $10 guide tip). We had chosen the 10:30am tour as everything I read said the lighting would be the best this time of morning. They ask you to arrive ½ hour early for check in. Page is located in Arizona which does not recognize daylight savings and we were camping in Utah so there was an hour difference in a matter of 10 miles. We arrived at the tour location promptly at 10am and were told we missed our tour and they follow Utah time! What?!?!? Luckily they had a couple slots for the next tour and we were good to go.

Between Dixie’s and Ken’s they schedule tours every 10 minutes. The tours have anywhere from 30-45 people in each tour…..so you can imagine the number of people. As we approached the entrance to the canyon you could see people lined up waiting to get in.

Approaching the covered entrance

We waited about 30 minutes to climb down the first set of stairs into the slot.

The stairs leading down into the canyon

Once we got in we found ourselves in a large room with more than 100 people standing around taking pictures.  This was going to be a long 1½ hours!

Yikes!

At that point our guide (Savannah) went around to each member of our tour group (14 people) and asked if they needed any help with their cameras. This was one of my biggest concerns going into this tour, what camera settings to use. I went on line and found a lot of information on how to set your camera for the Upper Canyon Photography Tours where you can use tripods where exposures of over 6 seconds are not uncommon. Not possible in the Lower Canyon tours where tripods are not allowed.

She set both our cameras to the same settings; P (Program mode) ISO 400, white balance to “Cloudy” and E/V value to -3.  I will say, what initially looks like chaos toured out to be a quiet and peaceful tour.  Once we left that initial room and started our tour we usually only saw the other 12 people in our tour and at times we lost them and were all by ourselves.

The contours lines and coloring of the sandstone were incredible! It first section had walls 60’-80’, about 1/3^rd of the way through we climbed some stairs and the walls were 20’- 40’. We took hundreds of pictures between the two of us. It was difficult to choose which pictures to include. I apologize in advance but this is as few as we could narrow it down to……

See how narrow it gets?

Including some people adds a little perspective

She called this shot The Rocky Mountain Sunset

The guide called this one the Maidens Head

The exit is a VERY narrow passageway out of a crack in the rocks onto the surface.....very cool.

This area around Page and Lake Powell has a lot to offer…. Hiking, boating, the tours and ATV’ing. There were trails leaving right from our camping area and Barb went for a ride into the surrounding hills to take some pictures of our camping area from above.

Our rig is the dark speck right in the middle

View the other direction

The beach camping was great, we arrived on a Tuesday and left on Saturday. Friday night the beach got really crowded. I imagine in the summer it is a zoo! Be warned, do not get into the soft sand! There were a couple of rigs that got stuck while we were there that had to be towed out.