May 20 – Red Canyon Arches Trail

At 8000 feet elevation I forgot that a clear day means a cold night. I think the outside water hose froze last night because there was no pressure when I got up. Later in the morning it had thawed with no damage. I think I will empty it tonight.

It was another really nice day so we couldn’t resist going out. We were a bit worried that anything that we did today would be a let down after yesterday’s hike.

I decided to try two short hikes in the Red Canyon area. The Arches Trail is a short 1.5 km loop that takes you to 15 small arches. The Loosee Canyon Trail goes 3 miles up a scenic canyon but we only planned to do a bit of it.

The Arches Trail turned out to be a great little hike. Within a very small area there was a large collection of very interesting objects and sights. We got here at 11:30 and spent 2 hours just here.

Right near the start was this small rock house. I have no idea why it is there.

There were even some steps at a difficult spot.

There are several layers of the hard capstone making for some wonderful landscape.

I went out onto this point to see what I could see.

The view to the west.

The view around the corner to the north.

There were lots of little points for me to climb out on to.

A really knarled and burnt stump.

There were a few wispy clouds forming to give the sky some depth.

We spent a lot of time at this wall of windows, hoodoos and chambers.

You can barely tell but Jennie is in one of the windows below.

I climbed up for the downward view.

There were lots of razor sharp fins.

And a large arch that we will get to see from below.

 

Moving on around the curve.

We decided to stop at another set of steps for lunch.

 

It was pretty windy and the clouds were moving fast.

 

Up to now we had had the trail to ourselves then two other couples invaded our private trail. They were going in the opposite direction so we heard them for a long time but only saw them a short time.

A definite face of something here. Big lips.

If I can climb to something I will.

Jennie even came up.

Looking out from the other side.

Heading down we came across this layer of compacted gravel.

At the bottom we heard a raven screeching at us from this wall.

We couldn’t see it but I assume this was its nest in the crack.

I had read in someone’s blog that had been here last year that they had also been lectured by a raven.

The entire hike is in the picture below.

Onwards to Loosee Canyon. The trail kept crossing the very wide wash in the middle of the canyon.

Unfortunately this is also a horse trail.

There were a lot of pine cones on the trail which were hard to distinguish from the piles we really wanted to avoid.

The scenery was OK but not great. It might have gotten better but after less than a kilometer we turned around.

Heading back through Red Canyon on the highway we stopped to do a quick trail up to a viewpoint over the two car tunnels.

Jennie went up a short way then decided that she would just look at the pictures and headed back.

Looking back down at the car from the top.

The view of the tunnels was not that great. One was always partially blocked by some trees.

There was however a really interesting tree beside the trail.

So far the rain seems to be holding off. The forecast keeps changing. We will see about tomorrow.