Thursday, October 20, 2005
Dinosaurs Were Here
When we checked in we were told that we could stay 4 nights but would have to move on the forth day to an water/electric site as all of the full service sites were booked. So first thing this morning Ed and I packed up the trailer for the 200 foot move. Unfortunately, the site we were moving to was still occupied (Colin and Margaret were luckier, the people who were in their new site vacated by 8am). As we didn’t want to hang around all morning waiting for the people to leave — check out wasn’t till noon, we decided to move the trailer to a large field and move into the site later in the day. Luckily our plans for the day would let us come back to the park early in the afternoon.
When Ed and Colin checked into the RV park they asked the woman what there was to see in the area. After listing the national and state parks the woman mentioned some “nice drives” and the a spot where you could see dinosaur foot prints. As we had spent the last two days in national and state parks, we decided that it was time to see some of the other sites. The drive to the dinosaur foot prints was nice — we saw a several “castles”, a number of canyons, a small town and several farms. The drive climbed up to a plateau and we stopped when the road turned to gravel. After wandering around for a few minutes we found them — large three toed prints in the rocks and as it had rained a couple of nights before there was water in them that made them easier to see. We continued the drive climbing higher up the plateau and eventually ended up back in Moab.
As it was after 1pm we headed back to the trailer park and moved the trailer into the new site (yeah it was vacant!). Next item on the clipboard of fun was Potash Road and the Indian Petroglyphs on the rocks. This road has the Colorado River on one side and sheer cliff on the other side. Along the sheer cliff there were a number of pull offs and in each pull off was at least one group of climbers — these cliffs seemed very popular with the climbing crowd. Anyway amongst the rock climbers were two areas where there was Indian Writing, pictures carved into the rocks — very neat. At another spot along the road we stopped to view some more dinosaur foot prints. These ones you viewed through a “pipe” mounted on the side of the road (the piped just made sure you looked in the correct spot on the cliff). A little further down the road was a trail to a couple of arches. As we were not in a national park Zaph was able to do the hike with us. Zaph and I didn’t make it all the way to the arches though — I’m going to have to teach him how to climb rock walls with carved foot holds and ladders! We were able to see Bow Tie Arch and Corona Arch from a distance but Ed was able to walk up to the arches (he can climb rock walls with foot holds and ladders better than Zaph).
The day had been clear and sunny and I had told Ed if we had a clear evening I would hike into Delicate Arch (in Arches National Park) with him to view it at sunset (it was a 3 mile round trip). The parking lot was full but we grabbed a spot when someone left — I guess a lot of people had the same idea. The hike was mostly up hill (at least going back would be easy) with the last part of the trail following the edge of the hill as you climbed to the top. There it was — Delicate Arch and about two hundred people sitting and milling about waiting for the sun to set. The rock turned a warm golden colour as the sun set — nice but not spectacular.
Castle Rock
A Dinosaur foot print a standard business card is to the right for size comparison (about 22" overall length)
Petroglyphs along potash road
More petroglyphs
The Corona arch
The bowtie arch
The delicate arch at sunset
On the way to the Corona arch we passed over this railroad track, would not like to meet a train in there
When Ed and Colin checked into the RV park they asked the woman what there was to see in the area. After listing the national and state parks the woman mentioned some “nice drives” and the a spot where you could see dinosaur foot prints. As we had spent the last two days in national and state parks, we decided that it was time to see some of the other sites. The drive to the dinosaur foot prints was nice — we saw a several “castles”, a number of canyons, a small town and several farms. The drive climbed up to a plateau and we stopped when the road turned to gravel. After wandering around for a few minutes we found them — large three toed prints in the rocks and as it had rained a couple of nights before there was water in them that made them easier to see. We continued the drive climbing higher up the plateau and eventually ended up back in Moab.
As it was after 1pm we headed back to the trailer park and moved the trailer into the new site (yeah it was vacant!). Next item on the clipboard of fun was Potash Road and the Indian Petroglyphs on the rocks. This road has the Colorado River on one side and sheer cliff on the other side. Along the sheer cliff there were a number of pull offs and in each pull off was at least one group of climbers — these cliffs seemed very popular with the climbing crowd. Anyway amongst the rock climbers were two areas where there was Indian Writing, pictures carved into the rocks — very neat. At another spot along the road we stopped to view some more dinosaur foot prints. These ones you viewed through a “pipe” mounted on the side of the road (the piped just made sure you looked in the correct spot on the cliff). A little further down the road was a trail to a couple of arches. As we were not in a national park Zaph was able to do the hike with us. Zaph and I didn’t make it all the way to the arches though — I’m going to have to teach him how to climb rock walls with carved foot holds and ladders! We were able to see Bow Tie Arch and Corona Arch from a distance but Ed was able to walk up to the arches (he can climb rock walls with foot holds and ladders better than Zaph).
The day had been clear and sunny and I had told Ed if we had a clear evening I would hike into Delicate Arch (in Arches National Park) with him to view it at sunset (it was a 3 mile round trip). The parking lot was full but we grabbed a spot when someone left — I guess a lot of people had the same idea. The hike was mostly up hill (at least going back would be easy) with the last part of the trail following the edge of the hill as you climbed to the top. There it was — Delicate Arch and about two hundred people sitting and milling about waiting for the sun to set. The rock turned a warm golden colour as the sun set — nice but not spectacular.
Castle Rock
A Dinosaur foot print a standard business card is to the right for size comparison (about 22" overall length)
Petroglyphs along potash road
More petroglyphs
The Corona arch
The bowtie arch
The delicate arch at sunset
On the way to the Corona arch we passed over this railroad track, would not like to meet a train in there
If you wish you can sign our guest book
We have added a web page with a map of our current location and route to date