Saturday, March 22
courtesy George
Waiting to head off for the day
Saturday dawned cool and clear. George and Dad expressed a bit of surprise at the frost on the picnic table in our campsite. For, even though the daytime temperatures were in the low 20s (Celsius), night-time temperatures drop dramatically. In this particular region, the combination of higher altitude, low humidity and lack of cloud cover contribute to this. In my opinion, it makes for great camping conditions (I don't like sleeping when it is too warm).
courtesy George
Heading up the first tough bit
Given that we have a 4wd vehicle (A Suzuki XL-7), I figure it might be interesting to explore some of Arches' backcountry that I haven't been able to see before. And the experience of a bit of 4-wheelin' might be an interesting change for Dad and George. So, we head out to a region of Arches called the Klondike bluffs, which involves driving over several sections of 4wd-only road.
The Klondike Bluffs
When we get to the first 4wd section, Dad scoffs in disbelief... "Andrew, you can't go up that, you will leave half of the underside of the car behind". Ah... he does not know what high clearance and a low-range 4wd system can do... Also, the view from inside the vehicle is always 3 times worse than when you get out and survey it yourself. I get George to step out and spot for me (a very important thing to do when 4-wheeling, because otherwise you will end up hitting things underneath). It all goes well, and we slowly inch our way along the rough sections. I have to admit, for a little while, this kind of thing is fun. A bit of puzzle-solving.
George does a little 4-wheelin!
After a bit George tries his hand at piloting the truck; afterwards, we continued on, bouncing our way along this very remote backcountry trail. It was nice being away from the crowded area of the park. Dad would alternate his comments between three major themes: how he was impressed with how we could navigate this "road", how the park service should really improve the road (the idea is to have it rough in the first place!), and how the road was just like all of the old roads back in Bathurst when he was a kid. ya, right, Dad, you didn't have to climb 45-degree rock slopes with one wheel off of the ground on any road around Bathurst, ever!
Eventually the road came out at balanced rock, and we rejoined the world of civilized roads.
Canyonlands
We headed off to Canyonlands
National Park in order to see yet another type of desert landscape.
Where Arches is a small, close, intimate place where one can examine
individual rock formations close up, Canyonlands is a much more
expansive place, with three distinct provinces, huge wide canyons,
cliffs, and vistas.
Shafer road Jeep Trail
Again we decide to take advantage of our 4WD vehicle and we take the famous Schafer road jeep trail, a snaking winding path that leads from the rim of the Island-in-the-Sky district all the way down many thousands of feet to the Colorado river below.
While Driving through this landscape, we get a [small] idea of the vastness of scale. When we see a couple of mountain bikers on the road, for example, we immediately see that we have underestimated the distance or the height of our surroundings by a factor of two. I point out to Dad and George that this is the area where many a famous movie has been made, like for example the Tom Cruise impossible climbing scene in Mission Impossible, or the drive-off-the-cliff ending of Thelma and Louise.
courtesy George
Andrew surveys Canyonlands
The spectacular cliffs of the Island-in-the-Sky give way to the broken white caprock of the White Rim formation, and then we make our way down to the edge of the Colorado river itself. There, employees from a river rafting company are lounging around at a boat launch, with a couple of guys practicising rolls in their kayaks. From the boat launch, a nicely paved road leads along the river back to Moab, and along the way we see ancient native Pictographs and many many climbers climbing the clean sandstone walls.
Canyonlands and the Colorado
