My Moab Adventure, Part Three

Friday night we arrived in Moab and first stopped at our favorite Moab restaurant, the old house on the hill, Sunset Grill. It is high on a Moab cliff overlooking all over Moab, and we had a spectacular view while we ate. We didn't start eating until about 8:45 p.m. so we were pretty hungry! After our delicious dinner, we checked in to our hotel, the Aarchway Inn (that's where we always stay -- it's the best, as far as I'm concerned). We both had a very good night's sleep.

In the morning, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the hotel (one of the reasons I like that hotel so much), went to Subway to pick up our lunch for the day, and then headed to Arches National Park to search, once again, for Magic Mystery Bridge.

I first learned about Magic Mystery Bridge when I lived in Moab. A friend gave me a book of arches that were not well-known and were definitely unmarked. While we lived in Moab, we followed the instructions to each of the arches in the book & would write the date next to each arch as we found it. We were able to find all of the arches except for two -- Magic Mystery Bridge, and one other that our family hiked in the wrong direction down Courthouse Wash (and I don't still have the book so I can't try to find it now!).

When Natalie and I returned to Moab in 2006, we searched for Magic Mystery Bridge again. We didn't find it. When my family returned in 2007, I searched again. Each time I covered different area, but I never found the arch. Those who have found it make it sound so simple to find, and can't understand why I haven't been able to find it. It is supposed to be near Broken Arch and if I veer off the trail to the right I should easily be able to find the arch. I have not had any luck in the past.

This time I brought the GPS coordinates with me and borrowed my dad's GPS. Natalie and I hurried down the trail towards Broken Arch and veered off the trail close to the arch. We followed the GPS and soon came upon a canyon. We were SO excited because we were just sure we would finally find the arch! I had never found the canyon or had any idea it was there because the top of it was level with the ground. We walked along the canyon for a little while and then decided to climb down into it. We found a safe place to climb down and soon we were walking through the bottom of the canyon. This photo is of me right after we climbed in to the canyon. That will someday be an arch - the top is full of sand right now.

After walking along the bottom for awhile, we thought we'd come to a dead end and that there wasn't a way we could get down to the next level of the canyon. Just as we were about to turn around, Natalie spotted a little opening underneath some rocks. We fit through the opening and were able to continue on our search! This is me in the opening:

When I first saw this area of the canyon, I thought for sure that would be the arch in the corner, but it wasn't. It looked just like the rock in the picture, though, so we felt like we were SO close! It was frustrating because the GPS was in different units than the coordinates I had for the arch, so I just had to guess how close we were. This did not end up to be the arch and at this point there was no further we could go. We had slid down levels knowing that we would be able to help each other back up, but we were to the point where we knew that if we slid down any further we wouldn't be able to climb back up and we didn't know if there were other outlets from the canyon.

So we traced our steps back to our beginning point and climbed out of the canyon and began walking along the top of the canyon. I was still sooooo sure that we were sooooo close to this illusive arch and I was determined not to give up! We walked and walked and walked and looked and looked and looked, and finally I was standing in the middle of a slickrock dome and the GPS matched what I thought the coordinates were. Obviously we were not at the arch! I was SOOOO frustrated! Then Natalie spotted a cairn in the middle of nowhere. We ran to the cairn and looked for another one. We couldn't find another one anywhere, or any sort of trail, and we were very close to a cliff. We didn't see the arch anywhere near. Then we spotted a trail of footprints, so we followed that for a while, but that just turned out to be the pipeline trail that we'd already followed many times before. By now it had been nearly 3 hours and I knew we needed to give up. I was so sad, especially since we'd found that canyon and I'm just sure that arch is in that canyon somewhere! No one has made it sound that difficult to find, though, so there's got to be an easy way in to the canyon from one of the other ends.

We hiked down to Broken Arch and I looked through it because Bob on the Bob's Arches site said that he could see the top of the area where the arch is, from Broken Arch. I looked out and could see the top of the canyon that we had been in, so I KNOW it is in there somewhere! Next time I go to Moab I will go to Broken Arch and try to find the end of that canyon. Plus, when I emailed Bob after returning home, he sent me new coordinates for the arch which match the units that the GPS was using. So I KNOW FOR SURE that next time I go to Moab I will FIND MY ARCH!!! I WILL FIND MY ARCH! I WILL FIND MY ARCH! I'M DETERMINED TO FIND MY ARCH! No wonder it's called Magic Mystery! Its location is such a mystery! Here is Natalie inside Broken Arch:

Next we headed down the bumpy, dusty Salt Creek Road and parked at the Klondike Bluffs Tower Arch trailhead. I had been there when Cameron & Micah were small, but only that one time. Here is a view of Klondike Bluffs:

The beginning of the trail was a tiny bit scary since I'm afraid of heights, but I had been there before so I knew that if I just hurried through it I wouldn't be afraid. The view was breathtaking once we got inside Klondike Bluffs!

My miniature Balanced Rock

Another view of Klondike Bluffs

Here are the Marching Men. I remembered Micah looking at the Marching Men when he was about 2 years old.

Another view of the Marching Men

Natalie at Tower Arch

Me at Tower Arch

We ate our squished Subway sandwiches there. Delicious! We were so hungry by then!

There's the tower, which actually is not right over the arch. It is behind it.

Here is another unnamed arch that was close by. I need to look through my arch list and figure out which one it is.

Another view of that arch:

Beautiful Klondike Bluffs:

The trail was very well defined on this hike. We thought this very extensive cairn was funny:

Once I was back on the ground, I took a picture of the view from the ground in the parking lot:

Next Natalie wanted to go on this cool hike that Pete & her friend had told her about called Hidden Valley. She heard that Pritchett Arch was up there so I was excited. I had been to Pritchett Arch before, but I got there from the Behind the Rocks jeep trail years ago. I wasn't sure how it would be possible to see it, but I was certainly willing to try it. I had heard of Angel Rock Road and Hidden Valley before, but I wasn't sure how. I knew I hadn't ever been there before. When Natalie pulled up Angel Rock road and parked in the lot next to the cliff, I told her there was no way I was climbing up that mountain. It was just like the mountain that was behind my house and I didn't see how I could possibly climb up it with my fear of heights. She said that Pete and her friend had told her that you couldn't tell by looking at it but that it was easy to get in to the valley. So I figured it must not be too bad and we started toward the mountain.

Pretty soon it became evident that we would be going up switch backs all the way up the steep mountain and I was TERRIFIED. Still, I wanted to see Pritchett Arch and I knew that Natalie really wanted to see Hidden Valley, so I started speeding up the switchbacks. I didn't want to give myself a second to think about what I was doing OR to look down at the ground below. We made it up to the top of the mountain really fast and in to the valley. Then I was fine.

The valley was beautiful and I could see its appeal. I lived in Moab all that time with the cliffs surrounding the city, but had never known what was hidden behind the cliffs except on the Moab Rim, which we hiked a couple times. This valley was green and quiet (and cold!). A couple hikers on their way out told us about some petroglyphs so we were determined to find them. We never did find them, though, on the way in or the way out. Here is me in a little hiding place in the hidden valley:

We hiked all the way through the valley and then ended up at the Moab Rim trail. We could see the Behind the Rocks area and hoped to see Pritchett Arch, but a passing motorcycle rider told us that we were nowhere near Pritchett Arch. I'm not sure why Natalie's friend thought we'd be able to see it on the Hidden Valley or even the Moab Rim trail. We saw a couple bikers who had carried their bikes up the steep switchbacks to ride through Hidden Valley and down the Moab Rim. Pete had ridden in the opposite direction and carried his bike back down. Crazy! I was scared enough climbing up and down the switchbacks, let alone with a bike!

Natalie and I followed the trail that said we could overlook Moab, but it was very steep and we were running out of daylight, so after it flattened out we decided to hike back down so that we wouldn't end up climbing down the switchbacks in the dark! Here is a view of Behind the Rocks from the Moab Rim Overlook trail.

We walked back through Hidden Valley, hoping we'd see the petroglyphs but we didn't. Here is the view from the edge of the valley just before we headed back down the switchbacks:

Once we were safely at the bottom, I took a picture of the mountain we had climbed up. This picture does not show the full effect of how steep it was. It was very scary. I remembered why I had heard of Angel Rock road and Hidden Valley before. James has been up there. He probably told me about how scared I would be climbing up, so probably told me not to try it. I am glad I did, though, because now I know what's up there. I will never do it again, though...

We grabbed some dinner at Wendy's and then, on our way out of town in the dark, we drove past my old house. It looks mostly the same:

Our ride home was uneventful. We went the right way. We could see the stars out our window (one of the things I loved about living in Moab! So many stars!). We picked up Amy in Provo on our way home. We arrived in Bountiful at 1 a.m. The girls had had a blast with their cousins. The next day we went to my mom's ward and then headed home. I love Moab! I can't wait to go back again!