Day 2-Arches

We started out our second day hiking to Landscape Arch.  N2 did a fairly good job hiking the way out there.

Mom took a picture of all of us with the arch behind us.

The trail is mainly sand right by the arch so that meant my kids had time to play in the sand.  The sand there is very fine and soft.  My kids constantly played in the sand while we there and we found sand EVERYWHERE.  Their shoes were constantly filled with sand and we had to stop often to empty them out. We would take a shower at night and just walking back to the campsite we would be dirty again because of the sand.  Everything in our tent was covered with sand.  I'm so glad to be home and not around sand constantly!

After we got to the arch, Brian and Dad went further on the trail to see the other arches-Partition (which you can see from Landscape Arch but you don't get a really good view until you get further up the trail), Navajo, Double O and Private.  They took the primitive trail back from Double O Arch.  Mom, N2 and I hiked back and saw Pinetree Arch and Tunnel Arch.  We meant to grab the keys to the car from Brian so we could drive to see a couple other arches but I forgot that until it was too late (it was only about 5 minutes after we split up but I figured there was NO way that I could catch up to them seeing as how the first part of the hike was hiking up a steep fin!).  So we had a picnic (eating Grandma's food) under a tree (which are far and few between) and did an activity book while we waited for them to get back.  I'll let Brian show you pictures from their hike.

In this picture you can see Partition Arch to the right of Landscape Arch.

Here is Tunnel Arch and a small one to the left.  I think it's called Left Tunnel Arch or something creative like that.

Here's Pinetree Arch which Noah says is his favorite.  While we were at Pinetree Arch, Grandma wrote N2's names in the sand which they thought that was so fun!  We walked to the other side of the arch and Noah just wanted to keep walking out into the desert!

I like to lay down and take pictures of the top inside of the arch.

My hikers needed some encouragement on the way back to keep walking so Grandma let them use her trekking pole.  We had some issues with them lifting it too high but otherwise, they did a good job.

Right at the beginning of the trail out to Landscape Arch there is a fin that has a sand dune in it.  Guess where my kids played for a while?  They would run up and then slide down it.  Boy did we find sand all over!

After we reunited with Brian and Dad, Mom took N2 back to her hotel room for a much needed bath and a nap.  She said she had to lay down in between them and she fell asleep too.  Luckily they both took a good nap!  Meanwhile, Dad, Brian and I went to the Fiery Furnace.  We decided to forgo the ranger tour that Brian and I had booked to go on our own.  We had fun exploring various areas that we wouldn't have been able to do with a ranger tour.  Brian climbed into many side fins. It took us a while to find the route through but we eventually did find it.  Brian found a hole to crawl into and then found a way out of it a different way.

Here we are watching Brian in the hole.

 I have no idea what this arch is called.  Maybe my dad remembers :)

 I love all the holes out of the rock!

We finally made our way to Skull Arch (I think they have another name for it but I don't know what it is) and then we had to backtrack to find the other fins to go between to make our way out to see Kissing Turtle Arch.

On the way to find the fins that would lead us to Kissing Turtle Arch, Brian and I explored another side area and found this arch which Brian could actually walk on.

I was not a fan of the way out to get to Kissing Turtle Arch.  There were too many gaps that I had to step over that I thought were too large and the rocks on the other side were too steep.  Luckily Brian helped me out but it still took me about 10 minutes to get over one :)  The way back was easier though since we had to go back the way we came from because we couldn't find the other way out.

 Kissing Turtles:

Like I said, once we got to Kissing Turtles, we explored and explored but could NOT find the trail out.  There are no cairns or anything and dad recalls having the same trouble with Marcie but they eventually found people who were going that way.  We could not find anyone and we thought there was a ranger tour that should be by soon so we thought we could wait.  Luckily we didn't because no ranger tour came by and we didn't see any signs of there being a ranger tour (we really should have run into them).  We finally decided to go back down the fins that we came up and it wasn't long until we were out.  I wish we would have been able to find the other way out because we would have seen Surprise Arch which looks really cool.  Next time we'll take the ranger tour so we can find the way out!

We did too much walking for dad because his feet were terrible after we got back to the hotel. Perhaps we should have done the Fiery Furnace a different day from doing the trail out to Double O Arch.