Hiking to Delicate Arch

Today's activity was a 3-mile hike to one of the Moab area's signature features. An important part of this was a good steep climb up a sandstone slickrock face. (Cindy thinks a quarter-mile; I might have gone for a _third_. It was long, and it was steep.)

The arch itself is almost unbelievable. On the one hand, it's a large freestanding structure that looks like it should not exist at all--and may not forever, anyway. On the other hand, its setting is such that abundant magical scenery is in the view beyond it.

The hike is pretty strenuous, made more so by winds that came up, threatening to toss us off the rocky ledge that was the last push to the arch. It wasn't really quite dangerous as such, but did tend to enforce a certain awareness. It was in our faces on the way back down--and we ate a fair amount of the same sand responsible for the arches and the other fanciful contours of the surrounding scenery.

It felt like 40+ m.p.h. with gusts to quite a bit more. My Tilley hat's double leashes got a real workout--and I never worried about it.

All excellent!


Mark_
_Arcadia_, Moab, UT.