Utah
The Art of Exploration archive is where you'll find my past writings and thoughts. You are currently viewing a list of articles about Utah.
- A Change of Plans
- One of the things I find most appealing about road trips is that you can change your plans at any point. When we decided to leave Mexican Hat early, we revised our itinerary to accomodate a quick trip to Arches National Park.
- Scout Lookout
- When we set out this morning, we had planned to hike the Zion Narrows as far as we could from the bottom up, starting at the Temple of Sinawava.
- Emerald Pools
- By the time we got to Zion National Park, I had racked-up what I can only characterize as a rather measly post-op hiking record. I had completed just two modest hikes, both of which had left me entirely wiped me out.
- Shoulda Woulda Coulda
- Every time I visit places west of the 100th meridian, I realize how much I miss making art. There is something about the light and the colors in the rock and the warmth of the sun that makes me want to be outside sketching and painting and drawing.
- Canyonlands
- Island in the Sky—a vast slab of rust-tinted sandstone 1,000 feet higher than the surrounding landscape—is not the ideal place to find yourself during a lightning storm.
- Lotsa Redrock
- This is one of those vistas that made me think of the scene from Lawrence of Arabia in which TE Lawrence and Sherif Ali stood at the edge of Nefud Desert, which of course they had to cross in order to attack Aqaba by the land.
- The Hike to Delicate Arch
- Have you ever had that dream where you’re hiking to the Moon? Maybe not. But anyway, it was a bit like that, like hiking to the Moon. Or Mars perhaps, because it certainly was a long way. And red.
- Wolfe Ranch
- Wolfe Ranch is located near Salt Wash in Arches National Park.
- Fiery Furnace
- In what amounts to another illustration of the fact that I should never be allowed to name a national landmark or monument, I thought “Fiery Furnace” looked more like “Box of Melted Crayons”. All red crayons of course, but still.
- Parade of Elephants
- The thing that struck me about Arches National Park was that it so plainly illustrates the vast number of ways there are to erode a rock. There were wind-warn rocks, water-sculpted rocks, and crumbling-from-beneath rocks.
- Devil’s Garden
- By the time we reached Devil’s Garden we were pretty much exhausted. We wondered if we had the energy for another hike. We inspected the map to determine what was out there.
- Balanced Rock
- There’s a path around Balanced Rock that is all fine and dandy when you’re on the one side, which I shall here refer to as the Sunny, Balanced Side. Simply put, Sunny, Balanced Side is the side toward which the rock isn’t leaning.
