Retirement Ramblings: Dead Horse Point State Park, UT

The weather was to be less than nice today in Moab, and then tomorrow in Gunnison, CO our next stop. The plan was to leave for Gunnison tomorrow, so we thought we would just stay here one more day. We checked at the office and found that the space we are in is booked, as are all other spaces. There is an auto show in town over the weekend and it evidently draws a crowd.

We called the Gunnison RV park and reserved a day earlier, then set off for Arches National Park to hike to the major arch that we did not get to the other day. We knew that rain was expected, but that it was most likely in the afternoon.

Landscape Arch is an oft-photographed arch. Many have probably seen pictures of it. But it is not possible to just drive up to it for a look. Like Delicate Arch, it is necessary to hike to it. Thankfully the one and a half mile hike to reach it was less arduous than the climb to Delicate Arch.

Along the way we passed two smaller arches.

Once there the arch seemed a bit smaller than I imagined, but it was still impressive.

We thought we could get more hiking in before the weather would turn bad, so we started out for Double-O Arch which was a little more than a mile further up the trail. This trail turned out to have a lot of steep rocks to traverse. We got as far as Navajo Arch when the wind kicked up and intermittent light rain began. Discretion being the better part of valor, we started back. The sandstone rocks are pretty well worn by foot traffic and would be pretty slick when wet. The trip back was into a head wind of 15-20 MPH with higher gusts where it came through the gullies between the rock walls. The rain was not so bad, but we were getting sand blasted. A thin layer of fine grit covered us by the time we got to the car.

We drove over to Dead Horse Point State Park where we knew we would be able see the park and views from vantage points within a short walk from the parking lot. If it rained we would just wait for it to clear. As it turned out we were able to see much of the park before serious rain hit.

The blue watery areas in the distance are evaporating ponds at the Liberty Potash (Potassium Chloride) mine. Water is injected into large salt deposits beneath the earth’s surface, and then pumped up to the surface where the water is evaporated off and the potash scrapped up. The blue is a dye added the solution to hasten evaporation.

That is the Green River in the background.

Our timing wasn’t the best. We got to Dead Horse Point right behind a bus of Japanese tourists. Luckily I am tall and could still get pictures of the canyon below.