Arches National Park, Delicate Arch

Today marks the end of this adventure. It's been a fantastic month. We can't wait for the next one. Tomorrow we head to Salt Lake City where we will spend the night at an airport hotel and Peg flies out for Columbus early Thursday morning and I head back to Boise.

Today we did the three mile hike to Delicate Arch. We were there at a bad time for pictures but they came out OK.

Arches National Park

Great day! We hiked about eight miles (some rather easy and some rather difficult) and saw many arches.

Tunnel Arch

Pinetree Arch

Landscape Arch

Landscape Arch

Heading to Double O Arch

Double O Arch from the west

Double O Arch from the east

Skyline

Peg waiting for me

Sand Dune Arch

Broken Arch

Moab, Utah

We went to the Needles Overlook after breakfast. Although it was hazy and spitting rain it is still a magnificent viewpoint. This is a must see if you are ever in this part of the country.

We arrived in Moab around noon and are in a BLM campground about six miles out of town. We got the last site.

It has rained on and off all day so we did a little driving around Canyonlands NP and did some window shopping in town.

Tomorrow we will spend the day in Arches NP.

Hatch Point Campground and Anticline Overlook

We left Natural Bridges this morning around 10 and are about 40 miles south of Moab. We have been in and out of thunderstorms all day. This has been the first completely overcast day since we left Boise on March 30.

We are at the Hatch Point BLM Campground and are the only ones there. According to the sign in register we are the eighth people to stay there this month.

We are now at the Anticline Overlook where we have cell service. There are great views of Island of the Sky section of Canyonlands NP and the LaSal Mountains.

Tomorrow we head into Moab.

Natural Bridges National Monument

Happy 85th Mom! We arrived at 9:30 and got the last campsite. There are only 13 sites here so the sites are hard to come by. There are three large natural bridges here that were all created by stream erosion. We went to the overlooks before lunch and after lunch we did the hikes to the bottom of each bridge. The total distance of the three hikes was about four miles with total elevation gain/loss of 2,500'.

The three bridges are Sipapu, Kachina and Owachomo.

Blanding, UT

We got off the river yesterday morning after an unbelievable 11 days in the canyon. The crew was remarkable and the trip was better than the '89 trip with all of the great hiking. Unfortunately on the third day my camera got doused and died. We will be getting pictures from some of our travel mates.

When we got back to Marble Canyon we were told that they had a dust storm the likes of which they had not seen in years and the inside of the camper was covered in red dust. We spent several hours today cleaning it.

Tomorrow we head to Natural Bridges National Monument. We may not have cell service there so it may be a couple of days before another update.

Here are two pictures from Monument Valley which we passed through on the way here.

Colorado River Raft Trip, Grand Canyon National Park

April 11 - 22, 2015

We spent twelve days on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. I highly recommend this trip. We did this trip in 1989 with Peggy, Claire and Andy but this one was five days longer as we stopped frequently for hiking.

Our raft

Pretrip Instructions

Navajo Bridges - leaving civilization

Relaxing on the River

Happy rafters

Relaxing after another great day

Our crew - Kelly, JP, Scott

Hors d'oeuvres

Clean-up

From a riverside cave

Slot canyon hike

View from camp

A great ride

Discussing another great day

Flatwater view

During a hike

Slot canyon waterfall

Slot canyon waterfall 2

Loading up

Rattlesnake

Ed Havasu Creek

Peg Havasu Creek

Happy hikers - Havasu Creek

View from helicopter on the way out

View from helicopter on the way out 2