Tronsolo Dot Com: Fade to Orange

After a not so great night's sleep (stupid gravel at the campsite), I had to drive all the way down to Moab, UT which I expected to take about 10 hours. I got all packed up and headed off saying goodbye to Wyoming for more than likely the last time ever. Thankfully, the drive was pretty uneventful but I was already getting sick of fast food (although that biscuit was pretty dang good). Thank God for XM radio. Best part of the trip was a bit from the XM comedy station. Mitch Hedberg (one of the greats) said, "I once applied for a job at an insurance company. The manager asked me, 'So where do you see yourself in 5 years?' I said, 'Hopefully celebrating the 5th anniversary of you asking me that question." I almost wrecked the car.

Anyway, I was able to get into Moab around 7 and after checking into the hotel (finally, a hotel!) and getting a much needed shower, I wanted to check out the Moab Brewery/Restaurant. If you ever find yourself in Moab (and you like local beers), this is the place for you. The food was great too. Anyway, I wanted to get a good night's sleep in a hotel bed but I ended up watching the Olympics until about midnight. Stupid national pride.

So the next day would be spent in Arches National Park and I have to tell ya, it's amazing how the landscape changed. The day before it was nothing but greens and blues and now being in southern Utah it was all orange and browns. And you could see for...ev...er. Absolutely amazing.

When I made it into the park, this was the first thing I saw at a little turnaround. Looks like something out of the Road Runner. More balanced rocks to come.

Before the trip, I had decided to include the Devil's Garden trail which had several cool arches to see along the way. Well, about a week before I left, one of those cool arches decided not to be so cool anymore and collapsed. Because of this, the main trail was closed but the "primitive" trail was still open if you wanted to get to the Double O arch (at trail's end). I didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal so I still planned on heading out that way.

Shortly after starting, I discovered that this trail was like walking on the beach. And not the hard compact sand kinda beach. I'm talking about the soft and fluffy sand kinda beach. For the lack of a better word, it sucked but incredible scenery. Enough of my whining, here's the goods (and keep in mind, I didn't come near taking pictures of all of them).

Tunnel Arch (not that spectacular)

And here's Pine Tree arch. At first I thought I was ruining these pictures if someone was in them but it actually gives it some scale (which is severely lacking in some of these pics).

Landscape arch - which looks like it can go at any moment.

Here's just a cool rock formation along the way...no official name but I call it Cool Rock Formation.

Here's a few pics from the top of what can only (and non-scientifically) be called a big, long rock. Notice the people in the first one. They eventually left the top and I was up there all by myself looking down to the hikers below. Of course, I had to go all the way to the end. The last one shows a couple on the trail and how high this "big, long rock" was.

Here's a shot of the "trail." Seems the primitive trail is just that. You can see the trail marker there. Notice how there's a slope of the rock and the wear pattern where all have walked? Yeah, that's the trail. Fairly high up too.

Finally, the Double O arch. This one was worth the hike. For a scale, the bottom arch is probably 12 feet high so the big one is probably big enough to fly a small plane through. Also, check out the guy on top.

Funny story about that guy on top. As I sat way high up on this little ridge overlooking the arch, that guy set up a camera on a tripod far over to the right on top of the whole thing. I'm watching this wondering what he was up to then all of a sudden, he takes off running to the left and went all the way to the end, turned around, and started jumping up and down. Seems that he set his timer and wanted a picture of him on the complete other side of the arch. Quite the entertainment. A few groups came through but I must have sat there for about 45 minutes before making my way to Dark Angel. Not all that spectacular but this thing was just all by itself. And this pic was taken at least 500 yards away.

I'll end this post with just a couple more pics and then I better go. Here's probably the best trail marker I saw all trip. See, when the trail runs on rock (as a lot of these did) and you can't tell which way to go, you need to mark the trail somehow. What better way than with the unnatural stacking of small flat rocks? You get the idea. It's also good luck to contribute.