Category Archives: Journey

Arches National Park: Delicate Arch

Late afternoon on Sunday, February 13 [2022], we capped our time at Arches National Park with the hike to Delicate Arch, one of the iconic views in the entire National Park system. Strategically, we decided to do the hike not only on Superbowl Sunday, but actually during the playing of the game. It was a smart move. We had gorgeous late afternoon light and there were only about a dozen folks there with us.

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Arches National Park: Devils Garden Trail

Landscape Arch

On Sunday, February 13 [2022], we spent the second of our two days in Arches National Park. We centered the day around two celebrated hikes: Devils Garden and Delicate Arch. Devils Garden Trail is a loop route twisting through a broken landscape at the end of the Park Road. In some portions it is a broad path. In other sections it involves scrambling over slickrock. The complete hike with all side trails to see arches and other formations is a solid 7.8 miles.

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Arches National Park: Park Avenue, Double Arch, and After

Park Avenue

By early afternoon of Saturday, February 12 [2022], we were halfway through our first of two days exploring Arches National Park. Already we’d gotten in a solid two-hour hike and checked out some of the famous roadside formations. We knew that we would be doing the longer hike at Devils Garden the next day. And our plan for the extremely popular Delicate Arch hike was to go at the end of the day on Sunday, during the Superbowl. So for the rest of that Saturday afternoon, we decided to check out the Visitor Center and more short hikes and formations along the Park Road. But first lunch.

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Arches National Park: Tower Arch Trail

On the morning of Saturday, February 12 [2022], we decided to do our first real hike at Arches National Park, an out-and-back to Tower Arch. The sandy, sometimes steep hike is a very scenic 3.4-miles ending at an arch that spans an impressive ninety-two feet. Tower Arch is one of the most remote large arches in the Park, so getting over to the trailhead was fun too.

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Arches National Park: Balancing Out on the Colorado Plateau

Balanced Rock

Our long weekend on the Colorado Plateau began on Friday, February 11 [2022] after a very busy week. I would have a little trouble keeping Bold Bison work at bay until the weekend properly started (in Pacific time because of some cool projects we had in the works). We’d also had a later-than-usual night the previous evening with dinner out and a program of Barber, Rachmaninoff, and Elgar at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. But even with some distractions, it felt great to be going on a trip!

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Arches National Park: Planning

La Sal Mountains from Arches National Park

Arches National Park was established as a National Monument in 1929 and upgraded to National Park status on November 12 (my birthday), 1971. It protects 76,679 acres of the Colorado Plateau in eastern Utah just north of the town of Moab. It also protects the highest concentration of natural arches on the planet. Over 2,000 arches with an opening of at least three feet exist in the Park. With over one and a half million annual visitors, the Park is quite popular (sixteenth among the sixty-three National Parks). It is, therefore, often quite crowded. So we always knew we wanted to be a bit strategic about when we visited. It turns out that an unhappy circumstance ended up offering us a great opportunity.

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Great Sand Dunes National Park on the Way Home

On Saturday, November 20 [2021], I departed Taos, headed ultimately home to Chicago. By the time I reached home the following Tuesday (two days before Thanksgiving), I had passed through Denver and Kansas City. But before that, I couldn’t resist stopping for a short hike at Great Sand Dunes National Park. After all, it was only an hour and forty-five minutes from Taos. And it was on the way. Sort of. It would be the first time I ever visited a National Park by myself.

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Interlude: Taos

As soon as Sean and I knew we weren’t going to be having company for Thanksgiving, I knew I wanted to extend my time in the west by working remotely in Taos for the second half of the week after my birthday. I even knew where I wanted to stay. Sean flew home from Albuquerque on Tuesday, November 16. I spent November 17-20 [2021] up on the Taos Plateau.

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Detour: Petroglyph National Monument

Established in 1990 and co-administered by the National Park Service and the City of Albuquerque, Petroglyph National Monument protects 7,236 acres of West Mesa west of Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Rio Grande. One of the largest concentrations of petroglyphs in North America, more than 20,000 petroglyphs dating as far back as 5,000 years are found in the Monument.

On Tuesday, November 16 [2021], Sean and I visited the Monument’s Boca Negra Canyon area for a morning of exploration before he flew home to Chicago.

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