Gwilliam Gazette : Moab

We've always said we wanted to go to Arches National Park for years. But when we get around to it, it's usually too hot. No shade there and over 100 degrees daily in the summer makes for not a fun time.

This time though, we planned it out for late March and finally made it work!

Arches has the world's largest concentration of natural arches, with over 2000 in the park. It was very strange to see so many and wonder how did they form in the first place.

Our first stop however, wasn't even at Arches. On the way down, we stopped at a little known slot canyon just outside Green River called Moonshine Wash. It's not on a lot of maps and it's about 27 miles down a pretty good maintained dirt road. Then the last mile isn't even on any map and is not signed, and is NOT for a "normal" car. Luckily, we were in a 4wd drive car and made it just fine, despite screams from Marissa and Shelley to stop!

Along the 27 miles of dirt road, we passed strange beehive rock formations like this

The rest of the drive looked like this

We found the unmarked road for the last mile

And ended up here where the road ended. Not much to see

I had some vague instructions on how to find the entrance to the canyon, and they were a little too vague

We wandered around for about 30 minutes before we finally found where we should have been going

Finally we found this landmark, which is NOT the canyon, but having seen this photo before, I knew we were close. I also knew there were several dryfalls of about 10-15 feet, so I brought along a rope in case it came in handy. HINT: It came in handy

We climbed down this little wall and then we saw the opening of the slot canyon

Slot canyons are weird....They start out from nothing, like this. This is the "entrance"

Just get in the middle and start walking

Very soon, the walls start getting a little higher and higher.....

We think this was a cow that fell in long ago and couldn't get out. We did see a lot of cows wandering around

Soon the walls are much taller than we are

First dryfall..this one wasn't bad..No rope needed

Another dryfall..no rope needed..Just use hands and legs to put opposite pressure and slowly walk down

Finally we came to a dryfall that we couldn't mentally, get down. Matt did it just fine, and so did Jacob. The rest of us however, were not as mentally strong and we used the rope. It took us a while to mentally get ready, but we all made it

Jacob was at the bottom helping

It was much cooler down in the canyon and when we came to this sunny spot, it was a welcome bit of warmth

Although challenging a little, we loved Moonshine Wash. It was beautiful!

VIDEO of one part:

We then headed to Arches in the afternoon, but the park was closed because it was "full" so we went to our Airbnb and met up with Meghan and Corey and family.

It was very crowded in Moab as it was spring break for some places and we've never seen so many razors and jeeps around! Knowing the park was probably going to be full again the next day, we headed out early getting to the entrance by 8am and got it without any problem. We saw later by 10am it was closed again until around 3 that afternoon so we were glad to have made it!

There were so many interesting rock formations that just were in the middle of nothing

This is "Balanced Rock"

This was our firs stop - Sand Dune Arch in the middle of these sandstone fins

It was deep sand - everywhere like we were at the beach. Very strange

In the middle, we found the arch. There weren't very many people around.......yet

Hannah and Jacob thought it would be an ideal place to practice their handstands

Jane was having fun running around..and loved posing for pics

Next up was Landscape Arch - the largest arch on the planet!

They used to let you walk under it, but stopped that several years ago when another piece fell off

This little gem is called Pine Arch - guess why?

A small pine tree growing right in the middle

And Tunnel Arch

These three were Tapestry Arch

Of course Jacob and Hannah had to climb the highest peak they could see

Here we have Broken Arch because the crack in the middle makes it look like it's breaking

We went a little exploring off trail and found this little gorge. Jacob is standing off the distance at the top

Elephant Rock

Heading back the trail took a little climb up and over rocks

The only way to find the trail was to watch for the cairns showing the way

Next stop was Double Arch 2-for 1!

Short Video of Double Arch:

The most famous arch in Arches is Delicate Arch - it's the one on Utah's license plates. It's just out in the open in the middle of not much. It's a 1 1/2 mile hike each way and SUPER crowded. After our day already, we didn't really feel up for the hike, so we just went to the view point off the road

We said goodbye to Meghan and Corey and then went and had a yummy dinner in town! We were so full!!! We slept good that night having clocked about 8 miles of walking total for the day.

The next day, we slept in and checked out of our Airbnb and made one last stop to another popular arch - actually two. Corona (virus) arch with a look at Bow Tie Arch. These two are not in the park so anyone can visit them. Get there early! We got to the trailhead around 9 and by the time we came back, it was PACKED! It's a 1.5 mile hike each way.

Corona Arch was made famous several years ago from a YouTube video of people swinging off and through the arch which is no longer allowed. Sadly, one person who tried it, miscalculated the amount of slack in his rope and had too much slack and ended up dying due to hitting the rocks.