trailer running: ... with a little help from my friends ! Arches 2

Landscape Arch

The next couple days were total wash outs for hiking . On Tuesday I made my way out to the NW end of the park ( Arches) to see the Landscape Arch . What a great day . The sky was a shade of blue that could have come out of National Geographic . There are a whole series of Arches on this trail , 9 maybe , with various degrees of difficulty. I met a Brit on the way out , Rich, who was here for the International Beer Tasting in Denver . We talked ourselves into a powerful thirst and it was good to have somebody to hold the h2o bottle at certain points ! Slick Rock scrambling ! He took the safe way back and I pushed on to a primitive trail that signs warn of " dangerous trail;" .

after Landscape the trail took to scrambling up a fin

sea of fins

poles woulda helped

looking out from double arch - other side

Double O Arch

Thankfully …. thankfully ! … I immediately met a young couple from Switzerland, Daniel and Karin , who were going back the same way .

Turns out they had made the trip over here on numerous occasions …. even going so far as to bring their bikes once and biked Route 66 ! What a cool thing to do ! There were a couple of days when I was in central Nevada where I saw 2 or 3 pairs of cyclists , 50 miles from nowhere , biking west on US 50 as it slashed across the high desert . Remarkable thing to do .

Anyway , we reached a couple places on the trail where I would have been stymied, and probably would have had to turn back if not for those two ! Karin was nimble on the slickrock , and Daniel was great at helping me figure a fairly safe way to get it done….. which meant at one point grabbing me by the hand to assist .

We ran into a couple coming up the other way who warned of a choice between getting wet or a scary scramble . Wonderful . Along the way we stopped numerous times to admire the beauty of the FINS that make up this part of Arches . so incredible . And so fortunate I am to not have to leave the country to visit . It really is a wondrous thing .

When we reached the spot with the water it was a tuff choice. There was a group of older French ( my age ) who had obviously waded . The scramble around it was short , but slippery with sand . I watched Karin skip right around it , sliding only a little at the end . When Daniel slipped a little at the beginning that was enough . The heck with that ….Off with the shoes !! The French had fun with my dilemma but showed me the right way to wade through the cold water . True international Aide !