Wild, Wild West Senior Trip - Day 5

Today's post should really be titled, The Road Less Traveled! Last year, wehen we visited Arches National Park, we attempted an off-road rail in our older Yukon XL - a trail to take us to Tower Arch. It started okay, seemed doable but adventurous. I mean after all, it was a 4 wheel drive. Then the road quickly went from mostly sand and a few rocks to huge boulders buried in the ground but protruding, A LOT! Needless to say, we turned around after a little "hang up" on one of them. 

So, in this trip, my not-so-little guy wanted to try again. This time we rented a jeep equipped to hopefully handle the trail. 

Our ride for the day.

Was it scary? Yes. Was it harrowing? Yes. Was it fun? YES!! We made it to Tower Arch and since it is such an out of the way, hard to get to arch, we had it entirely to ourselves!!

My not-so-little guy rarely full smiles! You know he was having fun!!

Absolutely amazing! Arches National Park is one my favorite spots in our travels. It just leaves me awestruck. 

The boys, of course, were less enamored by the beauty and more excited about climbing tall, scary things!

Tower Arch is an old fin type natural arch, weathered into the sandstone. It has a span of 92 feet, a height of 43 feet, a thickness of 50 feet, and a width of 29 feet. 

Tower Arch in the distance among all the beautiful rocks!

Closer view of Tower Arch

Views from sitting inside the arch.

A shot with my Guy in the arch - gives you a perspective of the size!

There's always time to snap of pic of sweet flowers!

Our trail guide to the Arch

After leaving Tower Arch, we took a different trail back. Along the way was the the Eye of Whale arch. I guess the arch and stone is supposed to resemble a whale? 

We made it there and back with us and the Jeep all in one piece!

While the guys returned all the Jeep stuff, I shopped around Moab for a bit then we headed on our way and the next leg of our adventure. 

We made our way back into Colorado (more quickly than thought due to the 80 mph speed limit!) to Silverthorne for the night. 

It's an early morning tomorrow with two crazy adventures - one I am more excited about than the other!

Wild, Wild West Senior Trip - Day 4

Day 4 started early so we could head up to the top of Mesa Verde National Park for our 9:30 tour of Balcony House - an ancestral Pueblo cliff dwelling. It's about an 50 minute drive to the top of the park, but we arrived a little early.

We had a fabulous park ranger as our tour guide - he gave tons of info, obviously loved his job, was super pleasant to be around and honestly, was one of the best tour guides I've had. These cliff dwelling are literally tucked away in the wall of a canyon. Our specific dwelling was in Soda Canyon. We had to take a small but paved trail to reach our starting point - the bottom of a 30 meter ladder. We had to climb that to reach the dwelling.

Balcony house is considered a medium sized dwelling - it had 40 rooms. Each has a specific purpose from fire rooms to heat the dwelling in the winter, to smoke house rooms to preserve meet, to sleeping rooms to kivas and plazas. Balcony House also contained two rather small tunnels that we had to crawl through. A little tight... one of the times it paid to be short! We learned about their daily life, how the dwelling were likely made, their customs all the while touring a small alcove in the side of a canyon wall hundreds of feet in the air! We all survived without falling into the canyon so it was a successful tour!

Canyon view from dwelling

You can see the others climbing the ladder to reach the dwelling.

This room the only one with any kind of wall that faced the canyon. Yikes!

Upper Left - soot permanently in the stone from their fires. Lower right - kiva

Lower pic - visible decoration on the wall.

After the tour, we drove to the another portion of the canyon and hiked a short trail to an overlook. This overlook would allow us to see Balcony House as it looks in the canyon wall. It looked too high in the air and tiny but honestly, felt quite spacious when we were in it!

Canyon wall containing Balcony House - the dwelling is in the upper right portion of the image under the semi-circle looking rock.

Closer view of Balcony House from the Soda Canyon overlook. Can you find the tiny people standing in the dwelling? The beginning ladder is on the lower right. The exit path is up the left side cliff face. You can see a small ladder toward the top left.

We survived the cliff dwelling tour!

Our hike also let us see some beautiful desert landscape.

Soda Canyon

After grabbing a bite of lunch, we started our journey to Moab, Utah.

We arrived in Moab, chilled in the hotel for a bit and then walked around shops of the small town. We ended the day with Mexican food and an absolutely fabulous sunset in Canyonlands!

Tomorrow - a jeep adventure!!