Moab 2011: part 2

The next day in Moab we went to Arches National Park. We'd been there before and the kids have been begging us to go back ever since.

We saw a few new places, felt the nice, warm sun, ran into friends from Salt Lake (and high school - weird?)

First stop: Sand Dune Arch

This is Jack at the entrance of the short hike to Sand Dune Arch. I love being in those slot canyons. So cool.

Right before the arch it opened up a bit more and there were some great places to climb. The ground was also all sand.

Little Henry did great in this backpack on every hike. But he did get his first sunburn. We forgot his sunhat.


And here's the actual arch. It was definitely one of our favorites so far. The boys climbed around and could have played in the sand for hours. They could have gotten up on top of the arch, but you're really not supposed to do that - so they didn't.

Next stop: View to Delicate Arch

You can hike to Delicate Arch, but it was at least 3 miles, so we opted for the view hike - which was only a mile or so. This is a photo of the arch from the hike we didn't take (not my photo.)

image credit

Luke and I hiked together and Dan went ahead with the older boys. He kept using his binoculars to look for them.

Here is our view of the arch - far far behind the boys. You can see there are some people out further than them but we didn't go up to the edge.

In all that dry desert there are a surprising number of plants, but this was the only flower I came across while hiking. Pretty.

Last stop of the day: Double Arch

Here are the guys in the parking lot - waiting for the rest of us. This is a pretty short hike up to the double arch on the far left. Can you see it?

Seriously - you should be careful in the winter here because if you aren't - your head could spin around to the back and you might end up doing the splits.

Another view of Double Arch on the hike there.

Climbing around once we're under the arches.

Those are 3 of my boys up there inside that arch.

And one more thing: I told you that the boys earned Junior Ranger badges in both parks, but I didn't tell you about how horrible the illustrations are in the booklet. Actually - the inside pages weren't nearly as bad as the cover pages. SO bad. I could do a better job - and I'm not an illustrator. Am I right?

p.s. To see photos of the last time we went to Moab - go here and here.