Arches National Park

2015-09-19

Broken Arches

Today we, and I do mean WE. That's Kim and I got I up at 5:00AM to drive into the park for sunrise. There really is only about 15 minutes of golden light. To catch that perfect time with the first rays of light on the arches we were going to be ready. There weye very few people in the park at that hour. We pulled up to an empty parking lot. There were two arches on this hike. One was Sand Dunes Arch and the other was Broken Arch. It was already close to the bewitching hour, so I chose to go to the closer one. Unfortunately, it was in a deep dark canyon, so as we arrived at 7:15 we saw just the tips of the rock spires high above turn a beautiful golden orange. Shit! No worries, it was still a fabulous experience.

That's Kim! Proud that she made it.

When we finished there we took the half mile hike to Broken Arch. The light was coming from the opposite direction, so we had to hike through the arch to get sunlight illuminating it. As you can see from the pictures it couldn't have been more perfect. After we finished we took a 3 mile hike to another arch and then back to our waiting van. I have to say that this was one of the most beautiful hikes that I have taken in my life, and Kim agreed.

It was a great hike with magnificent scenery.

By then it was almost 1 and getting hot. We had lunch in the by now full parking lot, and drove back to the camper for a well deserved nap.

A nice black and white shot.