Packed up the campsite and drove to the Elephant Hill Trailhead. We looked and looked, but never saw any elephants (or anything that remotely looked like one). We took 5 five liters of water each with us for a total of 33 pounds. Which was close to the gallon a day that the park service recommends.
Hiked about 4 miles to reach our campsite over much the same terrain of slickrock and sandy canyon bottom surrounded by huge rock spires called “needles” .
The trail eventually reached a crack in the needle fence around a bowl of desert scrubby grassland known as Chesler park. The view was astounding.
There were pieces of a cowboy camp that was active from the 1800s until the 1920s and graffiti from many of the cowboys. The park acquired the land in 1976.
There was a section of huge rock “Fins” in the middle (tall thin sandstone formations) We set up camp near one of these.
We then hiked another 3 miles round trip to and through the Joint Trail which was really cool- literally and figuratively.
It was essentially a path between two rock faces about shoulder width apart in most places. A little wider in some, a little thinner in some. We were amused to see someone put rock cairns along
the path to show where it went. Duh! As if the rock walls allowed any deviation. There was a log ladder in one spot.
We returned to camp totally wiped out and made dinner of garlic butter rice and canned ham. The rain threatened, but really didn’t do more than annoy us. We sat and watched thunderstorms in the distance until it got too cold.
The second day of five miles was a lot like the first except we were in sandy canyon more so it would be easier on Beth.
Got turned around a bit in Elephant Canyon because we missed our trail and someone thought it was fun to make extra cairns leading nowhere, but we retraced our steps and found the trail back before our water ran out.
All in all it was a fun but tiring experience. We still don’t know why my (Beth’s) little toes hurt the whole time in the hiking boots. They never had a blister or anything because of the moleskin and Motrin kept it in check. Weird.
We got back to the car and drove to Moab, UT where we found a Laundromat that had wi-fi and posted a couple days of blog while washing, All those mushroom shaped rock formations had Beth craving a pizza so Gary got a veggie lovers at Pizza Hut while we were blogging. He and Evan shared a cheese.
We drove into Arches NP and set up camp in their campground. Photos tomorrow.
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