10/12/2003

Sleeping in the Fisher Towers campground again, we awake at the crack of 10am. Today we start the backpacking portion of our trip. We drive to Moab and restock our supply of food (focusing on fresh fruits and veggies). Then we drive to Arches National Park.

Arches is popular with the RV crowd and vacationing tourists. The added draw of beautiful weather and Columbus Day weekend has the park quite full. Apparently they could have sold each of the car camping spots in the park about ten times over. The funny thing is that car camping costs a fair amount of money on top of the park entrance fee. Backcountry permits are free and available. We head straight to the main office and request a permit.

Backcountry permits are limited in Arches. You must be one mile from roads, developed trails and other backcountry users. Also, you may not hike off trail except in the washes (dry or semi-dry creeks) or on durable surfaces like slickrock. This rule exists to protect the cryptobiotic soil, a living soil composed of microorganisms which is the basis for all plant and animal life in Arches. Walking on cryptobiotic soil will kill it, so stay off the endangered dirt. This is explained by hundreds of repetitive signs around the park, yet still a substantial percentage of the tourists don’t get it -- or they just assume that “stay on the trail” applies to other people, not them. Luckily, these folks rarely stray more than a few hundred yards from their car. So the soil (and eventually all the plant life) near the roads is dying, but the rest of the park is relatively pristine. Like most climbers, I use the term “tourist” the same way computer professionals use the term “user.” Actually, I appreciate seeing people get outside, and most are responsible humans. It is the bad ones of the bunch that give me something to be sanctimonious about (I suppose I should at least be grateful for the pleasure that gives me).

So anyhow, our choices for backcountry permits are limited. The first option the ranger gives us is hiking west along Courthouse Wash. He says it is a nice trip if you like quicksand. Ummm... any other options? Hike east along an old path created when a natural gas pipeline was run across the park. After about a mile it opens into hundreds of acres of slickrock overlooking Clover Canyon. Yeah... we’ll take that one.

At this point we had to pause for some gear repairs. The tough hiking and scrambling we had been doing took its toll on our shoes. Both of mine developed holes in the uppers. But that was minor compared to the damage to Lauren’s shoes. The soles had delaminated and Lauren had flappers that ran from the toe to behind the arch. Thankfully, we had the universal fix-it tool: Duct Tape. A new silver toe rand and a few complete wraps with that 2” wide wonder substance and the shoes were as good as new. Well, not as good as new, but acceptable. And the dork factor was there. Although duct tape shoes don’t nearly compete with my super nerd glasses. Just a few days before departing Ithaca for Denver, my decade old glasses (which were about 15 years out of style) broke down the middle. Rather than deal with getting new glasses last minute before leaving town, I did my best to repair them. The repair consisted of a perfectly bent and placed paper clip, which was epoxied to the frame. It actually would have been fairly inconspicuous except the epoxy foamed when it dried. So I spent the entire two weeks wearing glasses from the 80s with a giant snot wad right at the center. Should have used duct tape.

Anyhow, with permit in hand and duct tape on foot, we set off to explore the park. We saw a bunch of arches, balanced rock, fiery furnace, lots of cool stuff. As evening approached we parked our car in the space designated on our permit and hiked the pipeline trail out to our personal section of the park. Walking just 10 minutes from the road was enough to put us out of sight of any other humans. As the sun set, we found a beautiful expanse of slickrock. We picked a particularly flat section overlooking the canyon and established camp. Darkness engulfed us as we ate dinner under clear skies and a vast expanse of stars and planets. These were soon obscured by the light of the rising moon. Just a few days past full, the moon lit up the sky and the landscape. It was possible to perform camp chores and wander off to pee without using the very cool little LED wristlamps I had built for the trip.

Lauren and I shared a giant mug of hot chocolate, then burrowed into our sleeping bags for the night. It was important to keep the hoods snugged tight. This kept us warm, and it also blocked the brilliant light of the moon which certainly would have kept us awake.

Next Day