Arches National Park

That's me hiding behind the sign.  There are no restaurants and no grocery stores in the park, so take your lunch.  Stop at the visitor center to fill your water bottles, because there isn't any more available except at the campground.  A drive thru will take about 2 hours.  If you plan to do any hiking in the summer, it is a good idea to go early.  It is hot and there is little shade.

Trails at Arches National Park are marked with small rock piles, called cairns.  I started with the 1-mile Park Avenue trail.  You can either have someone drive to the end of the trail and pick you up or turn around and hike back, making it two miles round trip.  I remembered to take water, but forgot my asthma inhaler.  I made it, but was huffing and puffing loudly.  There was a tour group of 40 coming down the stairs when I finally got to the end, so I had a seat and waited for them.  One man asked how long would I like them to take.  I responded, "Walk as slow as you like.  I need a rest."  You would not have thought I was in good enough shape to have completed a half marathon a few days before by the way I was struggling to breathe.  Maybe I should get an extra inhaler to stash in my backpack so I can't forget it.  

            

If you click to enlarge the above photo you should be able to get a look at the rock cairns. 

I got my first Earth Caches at Arches.  The Windows Section (above) is one of them.  There are no physical caches to find, but there are virtual caches that direct you to interesting geological formations.  To mark it as found, you have to answer questions about the area.  For this one, there is a choice of 7 questions.  I chose:  "Where did the salt in the Paradox evaporite beds come from?"  I'm not giving the answer.  Do your own homework.  If you'd like to see the complete cache description and questions, click here.  

While I was hiking the trail around the Windows section, a huge gust of wind blew the hat off the head of an older woman near me.  It flew down into a crevice where she couldn't easily descend.  A Frenchman nearby climbed down to retrieve it for her.  See, they are not all annoying loudmouths.  That group at the campground did not represent their country well.