Still in Utah, we visit the Arches National Park, where erosion has yet to isolate the rocks into individual pillars. Of over 2000 arches in the park, forty three have collapsed since 1970, including Wall Arch which fell in 2008 after heavy rains causing large boulders to clutter the trail. The Double-O Arch, which is the first notable one we come to on the trail, is like the jaws of a giant beast and below it a lesser sized mouth of scavenger which could still swallow a tall man whole without touching the sides.
I am hiking with Sev the French physicist and Emma from Newcastle in England with the requisite snow white skin but somehow wholly non-Geordie accent. We follow an offshoot trail to the Dark Angel, another tall phallic structure with a mixture of red and black colouring. On the return trail we stop at Partition Arch, perhaps the most spectacular site of the day because of the way it seems stuck in a chomping motion.
In the afternoon, we visit Park Avenue and Wall Street, so named because of the tall rock monoliths line a valley like a street of sky scraping office buildings, though not many office buildings look as intimidating and spectacular as these.
Late in the day we stop roadside to view some Indian Petroglyphs etched into the side of the mountain. These date back as far as 3,000 years according to the signs nearby, but I don’t think the ones saying ‘Custer died for all of us’ and ‘1963’ can be that old.
We camp by Colorado River, where notices warn us not to swim in it because of obvious strong currents and ‘possible high levels of uranium’. Sitting with Charlie by the river and cooling our feet in the water, we watch as a dead cat fish floats by.
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| the fallen Wall Arch |
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| Wall Street |
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| Petroglyphs |
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