Day 11 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.
Kayenta, AZ. to Green River, UT. We started the morning early with a pre-sunrise drive a few miles north of Kayenta to see if the rumors were true that the Milky Way still exists, and sure enough, it does. After a gourmet breakfast at the McDonald’s across the street from the hotel we packed up and headed back north to drive through Monument Valley as the sun was just coming up. It was an awesome idea, but it faltered in its execution. While there were a few decent photo opportunities, the direction the road runs through the valley there, would have been better lighting available if it was nearing sunset not sunrise. It also didn’t help that when the road crossed into Utah it turned more east than north putting the early morning low sun right in our faces for about an hour and a half.
I planned a short driving day, just 205 miles, so that we could revisit Arches National Park. The first visit back in 2009 we only covered about a third of the park and we wanted to go further in this time. I mentioned back then that it would take a couple days to see the park and I was wrong, we are going to need at least a third visit. The first time we took in Balance Rock, Park Avenue and took the hike to the North and South Windows. This time we covered another 1/3 of the park by taking the hike to Delicate Arch visiting the Fiery Furnace. The Delicate Arch walk was the big time sink. The trail is 1.5 miles long and all up hill to the viewpoint. It gains almost 500′ in elevation along regular trails, bare rock and a couple of narrow ledges, but well worth the effort.
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- Mini Monument Valley Morning
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- A small arch as seen from the trail to Delicate Arch
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- Delicate Arch from the top of the trail
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- Donna on the way back to the parking area after visiting the Delicate Arch
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- Delicate Arch from the lower viewpoint
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- Fiery Furnace
