After leaving Fantasy Canyon (and having to go back for a forgotten water bottle), we had a long drive to get to our stop just north of Arches National Park. We headed across more mountains, into Colorado for a bit and then back into Utah. We were driving on pretty desolate roads some of the time, with gas stations few and far between. We were getting close-ish to Arches when we put our extra gas in the truck instead of filling up. Usually, the truck seems pretty accurate when it tells us how many miles we have left in the tank, at least when we get lower and actually start paying attention. This time, though, we were a bit off. It had seemed like we would have plenty of gas to get to the next fill-up, but the reading suddenly started dropping quicker than usual. I started stressing when the range dropped below how many miles it was to the next gas station. The range got down to zero, but luckily, we were able to go the extra four miles to the gas station. No more cutting it that close in the future!
We rolled onto more BLM land, finding a spot amidst other spread out campers. We were definitely in the desert – red sand and dirt blowing everywhere, but surrounded by buttes full of color.
We had grand plans to head into Arches the next day, but both Mike and I got hit by colds (and worse for him). We had a few quiet days resting and reading. It got up near 90 degrees every day, but we had shade and wind and were quite comfortable. We trekked up to see some dinosaur tracks nearby and I scrambled around the butte while Mike headed back down to rest.
We eventually both felt well enough to get up early to head into Arches. We did an early morning hike through Wall Street, watching the sun come over the rock formations as we hiked down and back. We then drove through the park, getting out a few times to do very short hikes to see well-loved arches and other formations. We admired the views, but there were a lot of people in the park and we didn’t feel up for making our way through a lot of crowds. When we got up to Devil’s Garden (where we thought we might do a longer hike), we were unable to find a parking spot, so took the back way out of the park back to our campsite.
Our plan was to head west to meet up with some friends in Western Utah and after being out of commission for a few days meant we didnt; have the time we wanted in this area but we did manage to fit in a Paddle down the Colarado River along the southern border of Arches. It was an amazing paddle. Red cliffs and rock formations stood hundreds of feet on both sides.
We love the Canyonlands/Arches area of Utah. We have actually spent months in that area. If you ever get back there we would be happy to give you some tips of things to see and do.
We will take some tips at some point. We want to get back,just need to figure out when:)