From Northern Utah to Southern and everything in between we have seen some awe striking sights. Arches, Canyonlands, Glen Canyon, and Capital Reef National Parks. All interesting things to see. Along with sightseeing we also hiked 30 miles plus on this last expedition. All of this preparing us for our final expedition in the Grand Canyon that is coming up with in the next week.
When we visited Arches National Park we went on several day hikes. The Devil’s Garden loop hike which amounted to about seven miles up hill, downhill, and on the edge of cliffs and sandstone fins. Up there you could see everything for miles and miles around. We could even see the storm that had passed over us the night before dropping snow on nearby mountains. It was definitely something that I will never forget. On that trail we saw the world’s longest arch and an arch that some brave pilot decided to fly through with his Cessna aircraft. Really cool stuff. The next day we woke up to a clear beautiful sunrise on our morning jog, really starting my day out with a smile, and then we completed some school work before heading out to see the world famous Delicate Arch ( The arch that is on the Utah license plate.). As we headed up there we would look down on the valley and just see it like it was one of those scenes from an adventure movie, just a lushes ‘valley full with wildlife and full with vegetation. But we really knew that there was not much down there, but it was awesome none the less.
After we finished our three day and three night stay at Arches we left and made our way to the Canyonlands National Park located about three hours driving distance from Arches. Once we get into the canyons we found ourselves surrounded by high mountain cliffs and barren desert. All I remember thinking when we entered the canyon was “Well, I think that we made it to the middle of nowhere!!” On our two-night stay in Canyonlands National Park we were able to see some really cool ruins left by the Native Americans and the ever more recent Cowboys. One of the ruins was some Native American Petroglyphs (drawing left behind by the Indians that tell a story or stories.) They aren’t half bad at drawing big-horned sheep! We also saw some grain and seed storage bin made of rock and clay that could have been used by either Native Americans or the Cowboys, or maybe both. Right after the short hike out to the grain storage container, we to a much longer trail that lead us to an old Cowboy settlement and corral under the ledge of a rock! This was one of the only habitable spots in most of the desert because less than 0.2 miles away there was one of the only running springs in the Canyons. It was called spring cave. There was also Indian Petroglyphs to see there and some little hands that were drawn/ painted on the rocks by Native Americans. They were about the size of your average 6-7 year olds hands so I would guess that they were made by the children of the Indian tribe.
After our interesting two day stay at Canyonlands, we hopped into the Big, Black, Beast (Our van which is really tall because of the custom suspension and is just a hawse) and started our 3 hour trip right on up and over to Capital Reef National Park. While we were there I learned that Capital Reef was the Mormons most isolated settlement that never held more than about 40 people at a time. It was a very habitable place that the Mormon settlers ended up turning into a farmland and orchard. That must of taken a lot of hard work even though they had plenty of water coming to them from the Colorado River flowing to and through the canyon. This river was fueled by the occasional rain and several underground springs. The only problem with having this powerful river in their canyon was that it would flood. And the entire canyon was its flood plain so when it would flood the more powerful ones could rip trees from their roots and carry them away along with animals, grass, and grain. During our stay at Capitol Reef we had our backpacking trip take place. Helping to get us ready for our final expedition that will be coming up very soon. We hiked Mueller’s twist, a average sized canyon trail that stretches a total of 23 miles on relatively flat land. Hiking about ten miles or more for the first 2 days and then we hiked only about 3 miles on the last day, but most of those three miles was up really steep hills and down really steep cliffs. At one point we were on a cliff side leaning our weight on the wall with the loose rock around us falling! Jon was hiking right inform of me when a rock about his side came loose below his feet, he slide down a little and then finally got his feet gripped on the rock and came back up like nothing happened! It was really a physically demanding hike on the finally day, because we were literally scrambling up rocks with our full 30-40 pound expedition packs on our backs. It was pretty extreme. The next day when we got back from our backpacking trip we took a day to work on our school work and then we went around and learned a lot about Capital Reef and how it was settled. We learned that Capital Reef is located in the Water Pocket Fold that is located smack dab in the middle of the Utah Desert. The next day we left for Grand Junction, Colorado and stayed at a State Park, which name escapes me. When we were done settling down for the night we took a night out to eat at Golden Corral and just chowed down. On everything from awesome steak, fried chicken, sweet potato casserole, and tacos. It was one of the most filling meals that I have ever had! We ate like kings, in SOAR terms! That night we got to bed as early as possible so that we could wake up as ready to go as possible as any human is able to be at three O’ clock the next morning to catch our flight.
I am really looking forward to our next expedition and adventure in less than a week. Since this is our final expedition we are going to be running in almost on our own. We will lead each other with our the motivation of the staff and we will be making the decisions on when we need to get certain things done and when we need to be moving on to something else. We will also be doing this while backpacking over twenty miles down and back out of the Grand Canyon in an area called Phantom Ranch. The downhill park will be by far the most challenging area of the hike, for we will be carrying 40-50 pound expedition packs while going down steep cliffs. Our knees will be dead by the time we get down to our campsite! Since the packing list is up to us this time I am going to pack as light as I can possibly can, without taking the stuff I don’t need to bring with me. Like, several pairs of the same pants. Why not just use maybe two for the four days that we are backpacking. You know? So I really can’t wait until our next adventure and until the 27 days until I get to see my family and friends again during the holiday break.
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