Day Two

I didn’t plan on climbing today as I knew that I’d be having 3 days of intense climbing on the Splitter Camp. I did have one aim of the day and that was to wash, after travelling, sleeping in the car and having sand adhere to every exposed part of my skin, I was stinking and washing was a high priority. Again, I woke up before 5am and decided that I’d just get on with it. I was camping by the Colorado River and couldn’t think where else I could bathe. One slight concern was that the Colorado River is dark brown, and I was scared that all I’d achieve is replacing skank with mud. I gingerly tipped my feet in, pulled them out, shone the torch on them, and was pleased to see that they were clean. I washed quickly in water which was less cold than I thought, but still didn’t feel welcoming. Leaving the water was tricky as the bank was just wet mud and involved some boulder hops on muddy boulders. But I felt wonderfully refreshed and felt clean from head to ankle (the feet were unavoidably muddy).

I decided to do a bit of touristing and headed to the Arches National Park. Of course I wanted to see some of the routes that I hope to do with Anni. I was conscious not to take photos because this is something that we’ll do together. I did spy Owl Rock. The route on the West flank goes up the rather wide crack at 5.8. It’s the easiest tower in the desert and one that we should definitely do. I was also pretty impressed with the slightly harder Chinese Eyes.

Owl Rock 5.8 perhaps Finnish 5-

I then hiked one of the short trails. One of my whinges about a lot of so-called tourist places is that nature is somehow dumbed down for the general population. It’s fine for some people to go to the local reserve and follow the blue fir cones. But, I find the markers visually intrusive and I prefer to see a greater reliance on ones whit, rather than a wilderness for kindergarten approach. I didn’t hold much hope for US National Parks. I was completely wrong. I chose what was called the Primitive Trail, and yes there was probably a clue in the name, it said that it was strenuous (5km) and that the trail was marked by cairns. It was fantastic, the cairns were small, the path poorly developed and I hate to admit it but I had to work hard to locate the route. It went past some fantastic arches which would be very photogenic. I only saw 2 other people on the trail. Anni, we should do this with the camera, it will be great to have images of the Arches without tourists or without blue fir cones. I then went to the visitor centre and there was loads of information about the geomorphology of not only the Arches National Park but the surrounding area. Full marks for the National Park Service, I came away a very contented visitor.