Day 13, Part 4: Thursday, May 4th, 2006
Arches National Park
The Klondike Bluffs are a strange place from which to view the rest of Arches National Park. Evidently, they provided the original inspiration for the establishment of the park, which was spearheaded by Alexander Ringhoffer in the early 1920s. These days, though, they're a part of Arches that few tourists ever see. As such, they resemble the Arches that Edward Abbey--the author who wrote a book called Desert Solitaire about his experiences here as a park ranger in the late '50s--once knew. Back then, there were no paved roads in the park, so only a few intrepid souls ever came out this way. They were rewarded (in Abbey's mind) with a combination of solitude and spectacular scenery that disappeared once the Park Service decided to make the park more accessible with asphalt. The solitude is still here, in the Klondike Bluffs--where each person you see (if you see any at all) makes an impression on you that you can easily remember. But as good as the scenery is in the Bluffs, the best stuff is still back there, by the pavement, where just about anyone can easily get to it.
The irony of this all is that Abbey never once mentions the Klondike Bluffs in Desert Solitaire. He only described the best stuff--Delicate Arch, Balanced Rock, the Windows, etc.--that the Park Service had built trails out to, near his park ranger trailer. Whether he didn't care to come out here, or didn't feel that it was worth mentioning in his book, is all the same. He didn't have the same experience that Ringhoffer had had, back before even the government had laid claim to the land. Even though that was exactly the sort of experience that Cactus Ed was always claiming that he was looking for.
So, having now experienced this part of the park for myself, I can't be exactly sure what it is I've found.
I'm halfway back to the trailhead when I turn around and notice that there seems to be another, unnamed arch on top of the large, rocky ridge that sits just south of the trail. The arch--which is, again, not marked on my map--looks sort of like a miniature Delicate Arch and stands just underneath the spire of red stone at the end of the ridge. I suddenly feel inspired to hike up the rocks to get up close to it. Unlike Delicate Arch and Tower Arch, I know that I'll have this one all to myself.
On the way up, I pass by a few balanced rocks.
Most of the other rocks have simply fallen to the ground in a scenic heap.
Getting to the top of the rocks is a bit of an adventure--I have to clamber up a couple of ledges on my way there with my belly to the stone. Each time I do this, I leave behind a cairn of rocks so that I'll know where to get back down again.
After about a half hour's worth of calculated struggle, I finally get to the mysterious arch and discover...that it's not an arch at all. It's just a solid fin of stone, with a darker splotch in its center that gives it the illusion of being an arch. I'm so disappointed that I don't even bother wasting film on it. Instead, I look around and take a picture of the view that I've won of some petrified sand dunes and the LaSal Mountains on the horizon.
There's a neat little alcove underneath the tower of rock at the end of the ridge. It's bounded by the fin of sandstone and populated by a proud juniper tree--one that's actually living, no less, and has dropped its berries in little piles all around its trunk. I can't see any evidence that any human being's ever been in this alcove before me--even though I have a feeling that old Alexander Ringhoffer might have gotten up here, a long time ago. Nor does it look like any animals have made it up this way, either, as the juniper berries are all still sitting right where they fell.
Satisfied by my extemperaneous adventure on the rocks, I follow my cairns of stone back down to the trail and then hike back to the parking lot. Bedraggled and dusty, the Neon is waiting for me there, looking forward to the long ride home.
For one last treat, I take a short hike at the end of the day through a dry wash between two walls of towering sandstone that's known as "Park Avenue." There, I take this picture and sit on a rock for a long time, staring off at the whimsicality of Balanced Rock in the distance, on the far horizon.
Edward Abbey once wrote that Arches was the most beautiful place on Earth, and, right now, I'm inclined to agree with him.
