5:25 AM: After a solid night of sleep, it was time once again to patrol the dawn; this time in a very different environment. The view from our hotel window was a range of red rocks that were just barely visible with the faint light of dawn. We were up and ready to go within 10 minutes and headed off for the morning's stomping grounds, Arches National Park. Now I wasn't expecting too much from the park. Honestly, I would have rather planned out a mountain bike ride since we were in the mountain biking capital of the world. This was why I only gave us a half a day there before we left for Lake Powell. So I guess we would see what it had in store for us.
I was worried about the crowds. Nothing can kill beautiful natural scenery like a bunch of whiny kids with parents yelling at them. Or from what we had experienced recently, a bunch of people who don't speak a lick English. Now I have nothing against foreign people, but when you are trying to appreciate the pride and joy of our country, being surrounded by people from everywhere except our country is a little troubling. The entrance to Arches was about 10 minutes from the hotel so we thought we were making awesome time. Then we realized that we had a 25 minute drive through the park to get to the trailhead. This made me a little nervous, but we pushed on.
Our first hike was to Delicate Arch. It is the arch that is all over Utah; license plates, state signs, postcards, etc. I had read online that the crowds there can get ridiculous so I really wanted to get there early. When we got to the parking lot, there was one other car, and I'm pretty sure the person was sleeping in the back seat. It was looking good. The hike was marked as strenuous, but relative to what we did the day before this would be a piece of cake. We were even out early enough, where the heat was not a problem. But we knew that projected high of 102 degrees was creeping closer. The hike to Delicate Arch was a very well maintained trail and had part of it on a giant rock. The anticipation of finding the arch was weighing heavy on all of us. Finally after a few pictures of rock climbing and rock structures, we found it. And it was all ours. We were the first people there that day, and even though the lighting was not cooperating 100%, I was as ecstatic and giddy as a little kid. We were going to have a private photo shoot with one of the most photographed arches in the world. We had some awesome pictures, which I just uploaded so check them out. Once a few people started coming in, we started to make our way back to the car. Now since we had such an early start, we still had plenty of time to kill. So we look at the park map, and head to a trailhead that had 6 arches on it. Peak-baggin' => Arch-baggin'.
We got to the trailhead and as expected, it was pretty crowded, but it was not bothering any of us at this point. Hiking along the trail, the views were awesome. Whether you wanted a distant view of the surrounding desert or a giant rock structure in your face, this hike had it all. Even the trail itself got interesting at a couple points. One part had us hiking along a spine of rocks with a decent drop-off on both sides. We saw Landscape Arch, which had a large chunk break off in 2001, and Partition Arch, which was one arch split into 2. The most impressive arch was Double-O Arch. It was 2 arches stacked on top of each other almost like a figure 8. It was massive. It is hard for pictures to capture the size of a lot of what we are seeing, so we have tried to throw a person in there to give some perspective. I think we accomplished that with Double-O Arch. I will post the picture as soon as it's available.
From there we hiked out an extra 3/4 mile to Dark Angel, which was just a giant spire that had an usually dark color to it from the minerals within the rock. It stood pretty much all by itself watching over the valley, like an angel. It was then time to head back to the car and make our way to Lake Powell. I wasn't too upset about leaving Moab because I knew I would be back there at some point. Now this drive was going to be pretty since we were cutting past Monument Valley. After a while of driving we started seeing Monument Valley in the distance. Now this is easy since roads here are very straight and you can see for miles. As we started approaching I had an epiphany, "Holy crap, this is the road that Forest Gump decided to stop running on!" And I was right, just confirmed it on Wikipedia. So that was pretty sweet.
Then we headed through a lot more desert terrain and made it to Lake Powell. Not really sure how this happened, but there was a coal refinery placed right along the valley of the lake. So pretty much any view you had included 3 smoke stacks fuming into the atmosphere. It was very upsetting. But besides that the lake was beautiful, the water was unnaturally blue with all of the red rocks surrounding it. We headed for my friend Caitlyn's house who lived just north of the AZ/UT border. When we pulled onto her street we were not really sure what we were getting ourselves into since most of the houses were pretty run down and she told me that she had 5 people living in her house. But we went all the way to the end of the road and at the cul-de-sac was a very nice southwest style rancher with an amazing view of the lake and all the surrounded it. We obviously took in the view enjoying a couple ULTRA's and then she sadly had to head back to work. Then her boyfriend Anthony came home, and took us down to go swimming at the lake. Finally, some swimming in a natural body of water. I had been waiting all trip for this. And it did not disappoint.
Anthony had a pretty sweet Jeep which we were driving across the Lone Rock Beach to get to our swimming area. Not only was it a swimming area, but there were some awesome cliffs to jump off. Nick had never been cliff jumping, but this was JJ's specialty. I think Nick was a little apprehensive at first, but after that first jump he loved the rush. Not to mention the water was the perfect temperature and just felt so clean. Now to make things even better, the sunset was the most amazing sunset any of us has seen. Even Anthony, who lived in Hawaii for 3 years said he had never seen a sunset that awesome. It was literally like the sky was on fire. Our swam in as fast as possible to grab a camera and take a picture. I didn't quite get it in all it's glory but it was still very impressive.
After the lake, we headed into town to grab some dinner and drinks and get caught up on the sports world by watch a couple rounds of Sportscenter. Caitlyn was able to meet up with us after work, which was nice to spend some time with her. Back at the house, we checked out the bazillion stars that were out and it was very impressive. Then it was time to crash after another long, awesome day. ULTRA day 9/39: COMPLETE
JM
After
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