November 27: Salt Lake City, Utah, to Moab, Utah

The return trip to New Hampshire started today. I gassed up the car and headed south about 9:00am. I retraced the route I had taken into Salt Lake City from Green River six days ago. There was snow on the ground today whereas it had been dry before. Somewhere along Route 6 out in the wild mountain and grassland near the tiny town of Helper I passed Starvation Creek Road. I mused about that a while, wondering what the story must be behind that road's name.

The Green River was flowing nicely at the eponymous town. There was some ice flowing with the water and the banks of the river had some ice as well.

I drove on toward Moab. Just north of that city I turned into the Arches National Park at about 2:30pm. I viewed the 15 minute movie at the visitor center and then set off to see parts of the park.

WOW !!!

My photos don't do this place justice. First, there is no way to show the scale, the size of the rock formations. Secondly, they are part of a total environment of valleys, outcroppings, canyons, mountains, snow, sagebrush, and sky. But here are a few anyway. DON'T FORGET - you can click on any photo in the blog and it will then show you a larger version.

The balanced rock in the next photo is not small. It is the size of a large house.

From the northernmost point of the park's road, I took a one mile hike further north to see the largest and most graceful of the natural arches, the so-called Landscape Arch. The walk itself was wonderful. Here is my photo of the arch from the closest allowed vantage point. This photo too suffers from the inability to show scale. This arch is longer than a football field, but it is hard to tell from a photo.

One of the larger natural arches in the National Park fell last August. This one too is in danger of collapse. Just the weight of a large snow/ice storm could bring it down. The park rangers are very clear that just as nature has created these amazing structures by the forces of erosion, so too will nature eventually destroy them. Here is no talk of trying to artificially recreate the one that fell in August or to create some sort of man-made memorial to it. Too bad that New Hampshire could not have dealt so matter-of-factly with the collapse of the Old Man of the Mountain.

As the sun was setting, I hiked the mile back to my car and drove on to Moab. I'd like to return here sometime. There is a lot more to see and do, including hikes into Canyonlands National Park and river rafting on the Green and Colorado Rivers.