Day 102: Arches National Park, UT

We were lucky to score tickets to a Ranger-led hike through the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park this morning. We met up with Ranger Joan who led us down into the furnace. This formation is named this because it looks like fire flames during sunset. We explored the sandstone fins on the ground level before doing some squeezes and rock scrambling. We saw four arches on the hike - Walk Through Arch, Crawl Through Arch, Surprise Arch and Lamb Chop Arch (this was the ranger’s name for this last one since it is officially unnamed). The tour felt like a school field trip; it was a short hike at a relaxing pace, felt very safe, and the boys enjoyed the adventure bits of the hike the most. Thank goodness the hike was mostly in the shade since it is still extremely hot here. The ranger brought laser thermometers with her, so the kids could test the temperatures of the rocks in sun the sun versus those in the shade. They loved this.

After lunch at our campsite, we headed into Moab for an afternoon activity to get us out of the heat. We chose the town’s retro movie theatre where we attended the afternoon showing of the live action Moana. This was a hit with the boys and turned out to be a great way to beat the intense heat.

On our way back to the park, we stopped in to the Visitors Centre for the boys to hand in their completed Junior Ranger booklets and pick up their badges.

We also stopped to learn about the Moab Fault which can been seen from the Visitors Centre. This fault resulted in substantial uranium deposits in this area. During the 1940s and 1950s, Uranium was discovered in the Moab area. The metal was in high demand by the U.S Government as the key ingredient for use in nuclear weapons. This resulted in a mining boom similar to California’s Gold Rush. We passed a sign for the US Department of Energy’s UMTRA project right next to the Colorado River as we drove into town. Apparently this is a major environmental clean up site as the government moves the radioactive tailings from the mines that used to operate here further from the river to reduce contamination of the water with radium and other radioactive materials. According to our online research, The Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project is a cleanup of a former uranium mill site near Moab, involving the removal of 16 million tons of radioactive tailings and contaminated soil to a permanent disposal cell near Crescent Junction. The project, which began remediation in 2001, is nearing completion, with the final disposal cell expected to be finished in 2029. It is crazy that no one talks about this and it is literally across the street from the Visitors Centre.

We did see some geology focused placards on how the fault formed and how unique it is to be able to see so much of it above ground.

It has been a big tough to get out to see things here, just because it is so incredibly hot during the day. While hiking in 43 degree Celsius is brutal, we do want to see some arches during our time here. On our way back to the campground, we opted to do the shortest hike on our route. Luckily this 1 mile trail boasts multiple arches in the same area so lots of payoff for minimal effort. We were able to see North Window Arch, South Window Arch and Turret Arch, followed by a short detour to Double Arch. These were all impressive and enormous, with Double Arch being my favourite. The craziest thing we saw though wasn’t the arches but an insane tourist literally hanging out the window of his rented RV waving around a fully extended selfie stick with his phone on the end as he drove along the road to the trails. It was hilarious but so clearly crazy.

Our plans to attend the evening ranger program were foiled when the ranger didn’t show up. So, we took advantage of this free time to enjoy the sunset (dyed red from wild fire smoke floating over the park) and then the clear, dark skies for some stargazing. We laid back on the warm red rocks and looked up. Our view of the Milky Way was the clearest I had ever seen. It was incredible. Ian saw a shooting star and we tracked dozens of satellites. It sure makes you feel small when you take a look at all the stuff going on up there!