It wasn’t easy leaving our air-conditioned lair that we were in for a day and a half. I remember the desert heat well, but this is one thing that I couldn’t train for. As soon as the sun is up, it becomes stifling hot.
As I was packing the Jeep, I met a young man who works in the area. He was polite, and we began to talk about life. He shared that he was a recovering Fentanyl addict, and I shared about the drugs that I had been exposed to during my childhood.
His story encouraged me. He has a set of twin girls, and his words were something like this: “I couldn’t get clean for myself, but God gave my wife and me those two beautiful little girls to show me life was worth living.” This young man attends one of the local churches in Moab, and he witnesses to the people in his rehab group regularly. My day started off by praising my Lord and Savior in a motel parking lot with a young man that I just met.
Many of our National Parks have become so busy that they have implemented a timed entry system. You have to go online and purchase an available time slot beforehand. We were scheduled to enter Arches National Park between 9:00 and 10:00 AM Wednesday.
We stopped to get ice and fill up our water jugs before heading to the park. When we arrived, the lines were pretty short. We waited less than five minutes to enter. As a side note to any of my friends who are veterans, you now can get a free Lifetime Pass if you show your driver’s license with your Veteran designation.
After entering the gate, we headed up the steep incline to enter the park. Red sandstone with streaks of white and green surround you. Actually, this is true for most of the area around Moab. The sheer amount of rock will blow your mind.
Our plan was to hike to the Delicate Arch before we stopped at any of the other formations. The parking lot was about two-thirds full when we parked. Maddie took a sunscreen bath as a donned a sun hoodie. We put our summit packs on that contained our water bladders with two and a half liters each and hit the trail.
The Delicate Arch trail is a three-mile out-and-back trail that is mostly uphill on the way there. If you were part of the UN1SON Utah 2013 team, you will remember the slog up that hill. It is steep and this time of the year, extremely hot, but every step is full of views.
The training on the treadmill is paying off big time on this trip. Maddie and I motored up the trail. As people were pulling off to rest in the little bits of shade, we said, “Hello!” as we continued on. Just before you round the curve for the big reveal, you can scramble up thirty feet or so to a small arch that overlooks the Delicate Arch. The scramble keeps most people away from this location. I have a picture of my family sitting in this arch in my office.
There was shade and a great view, so we sat and talked for twenty minutes or so before heading around the corner to deal with the crowds. We took a few pictures before heading back to the Jeep.
I’ll give you the pre-Photoshop picture of the Delicate Arch. It is nearly impossible these days to get a picture of it without people.
On the way down, we ran into several people that had no business being on the trail in this heat. I felt bad for one lady in particular. As we approached, she and her family were huddled in a small patch of shade.
I heard her say that she didn’t think that she could make it, but her son said that they were almost there. They were not! They weren’t even a quarter of the way up the hill. As I passed them, the lady rushed away from them holding her hand to her mouth. I was just able to get out of the way before she lost it. We made sure that they had enough water before moving on.
A little further down, we ran into a Japanese couple who were carrying two small water bottles that were empty. The lady was looking pretty rough as she sat in the shade of her husband in the 104-degree heat. We broke through the language barrier to offer them water. We filled one of their bottles, but they wouldn’t take any other help, so we moved on.
It amazes me how unprepared people are…more on this later.
The Delicate Arch isn’t the only formation in the park. We visited several others which included hikes of similar length. We had good conversations and took many pictures before leaving the park.
The second half of our day would be filled with views as well. In fact, I may have found my favorite view of the area on one of the off-road trails. The sun was in the wrong location for a picture, but maybe one day, I will return in the morning hours. We drove up Hurrah Pass to Chicken Corners. Together, these trails equal twenty-two-plus miles of seclusion.
The trails are rated easy to moderate in our guidebook, but both are pretty rough. There are no big obstacles, but miles and miles of rough road. One of the reasons I purchased a drone before the trip was to video the Jeep on this trail. I was devastated when we arrived at one of the overlooks to find the trail blocked by a fence. We were still able to get some good shots.
The funniest thing of the day was Maddie wanting to have the drone land in her hand. She had seen me do this several times on the trip. We were in the Jeep, and she had her hand out of the passenger side front window. Thankfully, she started a video on her phone before this.
While landing the drone, I’m not sure what happened, but it looked like one of those videos where a monkey jumps on someone. The propellers popped her hand before running down her arm and ending up in her lap. We laughed until our stomachs hurt as we watched the video over and over as we lay in bed. Here are a few pictures…check out her face in the last one.
Here is a picture of why the trail is called Chicken Corners. There is a tight squeeze that causes one of your tires to get about two feet away from the four hundred-and-fifty-foot drop to the Colorado River.
We made it to the end of Chicken Corners and turned around to find our camp for the night. Just before 9:30 PM, we pulled into the Catacomb Caves. This is a rock formation several hundred yards off of the trail. It was still 102 degrees as we cooked supper. It was a long sweaty night for sure.
We woke up to a beautiful sunrise peaking over the red rock walls. I’m surrounded by house-sized boulders as I type. I don’t have words to describe what I’m seeing and how I feel right now.
Matthew 24:42-44 42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Some of the people that we saw on the Delicate Arch trail were not prepared. This was sad to experience. At the parking area to all of the trailheads, there are signs that say: Water is life! We had water to share, but our water was temporal. So many of the people that we are around on a daily basis have plenty of drinking water, but they are unprepared for eternity. They need the Living Water of Jesus Christ.
John 7:37-38 37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
May we be willing to share the Great Good News of Jesus with everyone around us.
Because He Calls, Old Climbing Dad
oldclimbingdad.com 
One response to “A Day Full of Views”
I can’t believe that people go to Arches NP with almost no water and so unprepared. It’s frightening, but even worse is going into eternity without Jesus Christ,the Living Water. God is using you to share the love of Christ with people you encounter,if even for a few moments. God uses believers wherever they are for His glory because He is awesome.
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