Awesome, loved spending time with my daughters as I am sure you did. How long were the runs? HOw many go's did she get?
Only two goes. It is pretty good. A couple of hours with (guess) 10 rapids. That one was the biggest. Lots of fast water and riffles in between rapids.
Our camp for the night. What a backdrop! As close as it was to camp I didn't go explore it regretfully
Well the rafting had to come to an end. It was a great five days on the river. The water was lovely and cool in the dry heat. An amazing experience I would recommend to anyone. Just pick the right river Day 11 Rest day of sorts. We had been going non stop for days. Our hotel pool was our friend.
Almost all of the photos were done with my Nikon D7200 - 5326 to be exact over the entire trip. I had a Vanguard waterproof case on the raft. I carried 3 lenses ( Nikon 18-140, Nikon 70-300 and Tokina 11-20) and a NISI filter pack (waste of time for the river). I had a neck pouch for my Samsung Note 8, which I used in the tricky bits. It's waterproof to an extent but it won't charge until the charging slot is totally dry. Took two 20000mah battery banks to keep the phone and gopro going and took 3 batteries for the Nikon. I haven't even looked at the gopro footage yet. There is over 7000 photos I am sorting from the two main cameras. For some of those close up shots, I had someone holding me in the raft while we negotiated them or I wedged myself against some dry bags and trusted that I wouldn't go over. Skiing technique has its advantages here with moving your legs in sync with some of the rapids. There are quite a few rapids I packed the Nikon away so I just have those as memories I certainly didn't want my camera baby going for a swim. I was warned not to take it before hand. Many people before had their cameras ruined they said. Dust and sand were the biggest issues outside the river. You could change a lense and sand off the mesa could come down from above and ruin your camera they were saying. I was very careful to use my blower before changing the lense to make sure nothing was on the body before the switch out and if it was windy I stuck with the lense I had on. My wife was like don't take it but I was like - doing something spectacular like this, I'll take the chance and just be extra careful.
Umm, it was supposed to be a rest day. - well later that afternoon I had itchy feet. Let's go somewhere close by - truly it was close. We headed out of Moab. The day before our guide leader had said the monsoon had started. We had seen a few storm build ups on the river but it remained clear most of the time. It was like someone had flipped a switch. Before midday storm clusters were forming everywhere and this continued every day for the rest of the trip. Some of the storms would dissipate without doing anything but others hung around. On the way to where we were going we saw the storms forming all around us.
Slower update - I went away for the weekend for me and +1's birthday Yes we share the same day. I'd be in a lot of trouble if I ever forgot her birthday. Our first stop was the visitor centre look outs. The monsoon storms were building up and a severe storm cell is in the first one.
These are big photo stitches to get the panorama. Nine in the first one above and eleven in the next one. Those blue things are potash ponds.
Very easy walks to some nice vantage points at the visitor centre. We didn't hang here too much. I wanted to get to the main scenic point as I was very concerned about the storms. Cells were forming all around us. Lightning warnings are everywhere to tell you to not be in the open. And I am using a tripod so...yeah.
I really like this next set of photos. The storms were catching up to us on the next mesa over albeit they were a good decent set of kilometres away. A very visual rain band pushed slowly right and what looks like sand been driven up into the air in front of the storm off to the distance from centre to right of pictures. I was getting a little anxious about being out. Visually stunning and to get a real idea of it you had to be there.
Why are the rocks 'glowing'? The sun was setting off to the right and with most of the storm clusters pushing from east to west (left to right) it gave off an eerie light.
I like the second one. Those south western roads apparently going from nowhere to nowhere else are intriguing
Canyonlands has oodles of offroad trails that are hardcore to do. Perhaps they are part of that network. I'm not sure. We ran out of time there but I would have opted into one of those tours as they take you places that the folk in normal cars can't get to.
Just after this shot I glanced over behind me to see the sun streaming through the clouds but out of sight to where it was lighting it up. I raced across to the other cliff face on the other side of the mesa. It was pretty narrow where I was so it wasn't an issue to see the most glorious sun beam across the mid desert area of the La Sal Mountains, which were now visible. The peaks were still obscured. The darker colour just above the orange area are the higher altitude areas, where the trees are but the glow was so bright you can't really distinguish them. This only lasted minutes. Wow moment.
We jumped in the car as there was a fair bit of lightning around and I was almost at the entrance station when I glanced back to the west and said to wifey I am turning back. I managed to quickly get back to the last lookout so I could get a good view of the sunset unfolding and one I had missed precious minutes on. I managed to get this! Another bloody good wow moment!
So after the amazing sunset I hung around a little bit longer and got this. I did however decided we needed to definitely go now. There is no protection from it should I end up being a lightning rod with my tripod.
Day 12 Finally heading into Arches National Park for a proper look. I can tell you now the heat was thumping. At least it wasn't humid but it was still challenging. Not being on the river now we had no way to cool ourselves down like before so it was important to keep our fluids up. Luckily Arches National Park have scenic stops quite frequently along the roads in the park and have anything from short to long trails to explore. The first real major viewpoint from the Visitor Centre is Park Avenue - only minutes up the road.
I think the first one on the right is called The Organ with the Tower of Babel in the background. And the Tower of Babel by itself.
Some rock pinnacles near the Petrified Dunes. I took some photos of those petrified dunes but they weren't very inspiring.
Driving into the park there are plenty of things to see. From the main road in this shot is of North and South Window. Facing into the sun I lose my nice blue sky Even with a hood.
We decided on short hikes today so chose North Window first. It looks tiny until you're right under it.
Arches is pretty cool in that if you were a visitor that had little time to explore the park there is a lot to see without a strenuous hike off into the wilderness.
About 4pm that afternoon we had booked a Fiery Furnace walk with a ranger. I wasn't paying attention when I booked it and missed that they missed one person off the booking so instead of 5 going there was only 4 and they refused to make an exception so +1 stayed with my youngest at the car. You can get permits to walk this area yourself but they are limited and I don't think you can book them online - you must show up at the visitor centre to get them. Also the Fiery Furnace Walk can only be booked online up to 6 months in advance for the morning walk. The afternoon walk has to be booked in person as well but you can book up to a week in advance. It's a short walk from the car park into the rocky area.
Even in the shade it was very hot. The ranger takes you into some hidden nooks and narrow ways between high thin layers of rock.
Photographing this and looking later doesn't reflect what it look/feel like. I am sure with more knowledge of the area you probably could. Unfortunately I was unable to plan too many shots as the ranger got snippy at me for falling behind.
The rangers warn you that you must be able to do some strenuous hiking in parts and they bring out this flip chart that you must be able to do this and that (jumping, sliding on one's backside, leaning against rock etc) when you are booking it. We told them we did Angel's Landing and he took it away and said yeah you can do this lol.
The whole walk takes about three hours and along the way the ranger not only talks about the history of Arches, he spoke about the formation of the national parks and what legacy we can leave.
