Arches National Park

Spent the day in Arches NP.  Really nice park.  We drove to the far end of the park on a dirt road, parked and took a 3.2 mile hike.  During that hike I came up with my own trail rating system:  GT (geezer trail), PDH (pretty darn hard), HIMI (hope I make it), HIMIB (hope I make it back).  This trail was a HIMIB.

Balanced Rock

Delicate Arch

Cindy climbing up the rocks

Cindy found the trail marker!

Not fun

Towers Arch at the end of the hike

Another rest stop

Starting out we had to climb up a rock bluff then it got easy.  For a while, then had to walk uphill through loose sand about 5 times!  Walk along a sandstone ridge about 2 feet wide.  (where's my pack goat when I really need it?)  Walk up more loose sand.  Finally made it to the arch.  Enjoyed the shade and had a picnic lunch.  The hike really was nice, it felt like you could be on another planet.  The colors were amazing, we were walking among huge eroded formations.  Then we hiked back, thinking that all that loose sand would be downhill.  It was, and it was easier to walk down the loose sand, except we kept having to climb back uphill to get to the next sand patch!  After a few rest stops we got to the last climb down.  Not as easy going down as it was going up.  But we could see the jeep!  We finally made it back.  I think tomorrow we'll take the jeep on a drive out somewhere.  Give my knee a rest.
Before we started this trip I bought a SPOT, emergency satelite beacon.  The SPOT can send a signal to activate an emergency rescue if needed.  It can also send an OK signal.  That's kinda neat since it can show where we were.  Here is the website showing our location today:  http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=7KEvL/38.78949N/109.68854W