Day 3 in Moab and off to points south

The alarm went off at 5:30. Our plan to walk the longest trail in the park required us to get there ahead of the crowds. You see, this trail begins at the most popular overlook. Everyone goes there.

Landscape Arch-- everyone wants to see it

The Hoodoos at Sunrise

Plus, we wanted to catch the sunrise on the peaks and walls.


We had a blast (and almost had the trail to ourselves) climbing around the arches, crossing the saddles and walking up the edges of the fins. Eight and a half miles by lunchtime. Now, Scott calls it Aches National Park.

If it's there, let's climb on it!

Top of a fin

Scott tidying up the trail

Company

After lunch we broke camp and headed south with a side trip to the Needles Overlook in Canyonlands. Canyonlands can only be described as overwhelming. From the overlook, we could see 3 or four layers of plateaus and canyons. None of my photos can begin to show you the incredible geology created by 600 million years of wind and water (with a few earthquakes thrown in too).You're better off googling it.

Even though we wanted to spend the night in Natural Bridges park, we knew that the odds of a campground space (of their 13) was minuscule. Natural Bridges is an International Dark Sky Park. It is one of the darkest places in the US (a 2 on the Bortle scale). That's dark. It's one of the main reasons that people drive 100 miles out of their way to this relatively small park. With the moon not rising until 3am here, we had a great opportunity to see a night sky like none we'd ever seen before.

So we landed in Blanding, a small town in southern Utah. After a dinner that can only be described as a huge cluster, for us and the guys sitting next to us, we drove out a country road about 9pm and were rewarded with tons of stars and some remnants of the Lyriad meteor shower.