Arches National Park

Arches National Park – May 27, 2013

Arches was a nice park but I must admit that by this time I was a little tired of desert canyons, it was crowded and parking my camper was becoming an issue and I had to drive past several viewpoints.  If I had a jeep some of the back roads would have been loads of fun but my camper was just too big.  Nevertheless I did have a treat that I will get to in a moment.

Park Avenue was my first stop after the visitor center.  I did regret not walking through this canyon to have a better look at the geologic “skyscrapers” along the trail.  If you look closely you can see some hikers at the bottom of the photo. Here is a photo of the sign describing the avenue.

I couldn't get into the parking lot at Balanced Rock but I did manage to stop briefly on the road to take this photo.  For scale I included the oncoming car. Pretty impressive.

The Windows section of the park was crowded as well so I just circled around and stopped at the lesser impressive Double Arch.

Pothole Arch below.

Panorama Point was less crowded and the colors in the sand and vegetation were amazing.

Looking into the opposite direction I found here a group of Prickly pear cactus in bloom.

Parking at Wolfe Ranch for the climb to Delicate Arch was impossible so I went onto the Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint for this view.

Next I climbed up to the Upper Delicate Arch Viewpoint and found the highlight for me, an Eastern  Collard lizard (Crotaphytus collaris). This was my treat for the day.

It was so beautiful. I think this is a female because it is lacking the dark spots on its throat as described in my field guide.

I don’t know how large this one is but the guide gave the size range of three to four and three fifths inches. This little sweet heart totally made my day.

At the end of the trail I spotted several young cactus wrens.

Fiery Furnace Viewpoint.

I enjoyed the Sand Dune Arch Trail that started between two sandstone fins.  It was like a big sandbox inside with lots of children playing in the sand. It was shady and a relief to get out of the blazing sun.

There I talked with the ranger who was cleaning off graffiti, a daily job.

Leaving, I walked toward the Broken Arch...

... to look for flowers and was rewarded with these beauties.

 Prickly Pear Cactus

 Penstemon

 Beavertail Cactus

 Winged Dock

Desert Globmallow

Broken Arch in the distance.

Tired, I drove back to my campground and took at few more photos along the way.

In Desert Solitare, Edward Abby wrote in 1968, "It seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life...with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock."

Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park – May 25, 2013

Just driving up to the Canyonlands plateau was an adventure in itself with the sharp switchbacks and driving along the edge. Friends often ask me if I was afraid making this adventure as a woman alone, there concerns are mostly of me falling, or being attacked and robbed, and my answer has always been,  “No, I wasn’t afraid. “Except driving could be a little scary and this was one of those scary drives. It ranked right up there with 5 lane rush hour traffic.

The Monitor and Merrimac Buttes, around 600 feet tall, were named after the Ironclad ships of the Civil War.

At the visitor center I learned that the Juniper seeds used for beads, in the 60’s and by Native People have to be carefully selected. You have to find one with an insect hole to use because the seeds are so hard. Once you find a hole then you can enlarge it and push on through the other side.

Like everyone I hiked to Mesa Arch. It was pretty crowded but I did manage to get the classic snapshot.

Edward Abby wrote, “It is possible from here to gaze down on the backs of soaring birds.”

Cryptobiotic Soil is a concern of the ecologist in this park. It is the most fragile of plants and it doesn't even look like a plant. It just looks like dirt covered with black soot. Nonetheless, it is a plant on which all others depend. It is composed of slow growing bacteria, algae, mosses and lichens that bind the soil together to retain water and nitrogen.  Like the moss and lichen in West Virginia it makes soil.

The coloration of the rocks is due to the various minerals found in the rocks.  These minerals have reacted to the weathering, such as the reds and yellows of the iron that have been exposed to the air.  Basically they have rusted. The black sheen, seen on many of the cliff faces, is formed by manganese and is often called “desert varnish”.  I have noticed that many of the petroglyphs are in drawn on desert varnish and show up well because of the contrast between the dark sheen and the underlying lighter colored rock. Purples and greens are caused by clay minerals. Upheaval Dome is a good example of these minerals.

“The desert is a good school in which to observe the cleverness and the infinite variety of techniques of survival under pitiless opposition. Life could not change the sun or water…so it changed itself.” John Steinbeck

The Green River Overlook is one of my favorite spots in the canyon.  John Wesley Powell wondered in his journal, “What shall we find?” When they reached this section of the Green River in July 1869, he described a “strange, weird, grand region” of naked rock with “cathedral-shaped buttes, towering hundreds or thousands of feet, cliffs that cannot be scaled, and canyon walls that shrink the river into insignificance.”

Buck Canyon Overlook.

Grand View Point Overlook

I never tired of looking out these great distances.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

I had never heard of Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park but I wanted a campground close to Zion NP for a few days so I checked it out online when I was planning my trip.  I was thrilled to see that is the home of the Coral Pink Sand Dunes Tiger Beetle found no where else in the world.  Tiger Beetles are named for their fierceness like the 12 Spotted Tiger Beetle common to my area. There are a little more than 100 species in the US.

This tiger beetle, Cicindela albissima is one of the rarest insects in the United States and has been on the Endangered Species list since 1996.  It has one of the smallest geographic ranges of any insect and is only found within a small protion of the seven-mile long Coral Pink Sand Dunes ecosystem.  Armed with lots of information about this beetle I really had no trouble finding several but one does need to know what to look for. The photo below is truer to the real color.

Besides the Tiger Beetle the sand dunes here are very beautiful to look at. The one draw back for me is that there is a lot of off road vehicles allowed in the park in restricted areas but the sound is still everywhere.  During the week it wasn't so bad. It is such a popular activity and at times I too wished I had access to one so I could explore more. It is one of those issues that give conflict with my own values and thoughts.

Here area a couple of lizzards I found.  I think the first one is Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) and the second is a Sagebrush lizzard.

I even found a jumping spider in this desert but I haven't figured out what species it is.  If someone had asked me if there were jumping spiders here I probably would have said no, but I learned something new every day.

Here is a Juniper Titmouse I spotted in the campground.

One on afternoon as I was walking along the road I saw this Striped Whipsnake crossing the road.

I think it has a very pretty head.

If you have trouble finding a campsite at Zion National Park I recommend this state park near by.

Wupatki National Monument

Susent Crater Volcano National Monument and Wupatki National Monument are so closely linked that it is hard to visit one without visiting the other.  However, as I drove toward Wupatki the environment changed dramatically from forest to desert.  Off in the distance I could see painted desert sands.

 

The literature provided by the park service said that this site may have housed up to 100 Ancestral Puebloans. These ancient peoples lived in the Four Corners Region and occupied the cliff dwelling at Navajo National Mounment, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon and Walnut Canyon as well as here.

 

Here is a close up of the ball court.

 

I also visited the nearby Wukoki Pueblo.