Arches or Bust

The Backstory

On my mission, I left my first area and arrived in a little town called Guarambare and met my new companion: the incredible Hermana Lauren Barney. Sadly, we only had 12 days together, but I know that it was no accident that we were companions. Lauren is now one of my dearest friends.

Lauren and I had a trip to Arches National Park planned for the beginning of November. The plan was to spend four days in Moab hiking and camping with a group of our best friends. Tragedy struck and our trip fell through. Fast forward to the week before Thanksgiving, and we make a spur of the moment decision to drive down to Moab Friday night and then spend all of Saturday hiking before returning to Provo that evening. (The next day, Sunday, I drove home to California. It was a pretty packed weekend.)

The Organ

Driving into Arches, the first thing we passed was the Organ, an absolutely massive solitary rock formation. Standing next to it, I just felt absolutely tiny.

Delicate Arch, Landscape Arch, and Double O Arch

Next stop was the iconic Delicate Arch. I mean, come on, you can't go to Arches without going to Delicate Arch.

The view from the top was absolutely amazing (I am going to run out of adjectives for amazing, so sorry). I was surprised, it was quite a short hike for such a beautiful view.

Landscape Arch was just impressively long, and Double O Arch was pretty cool too. The ability of nature to form these arches, as well as the sandstone fins and other rock formations we saw just amazed me.

On our way out of the park we stopped to admire this majestic view.

Corona Arch

Outside of Arches National Park there are lots of other hikes. Our last hike of the day was to Corona Arch (which was we thought was an appropriate name under the circumstances), and honestly I think it was my favorite hike of the day. The views along the way were just incredible, and hiking along the inside of this rock formation just made me feel so small.

Lauren referred to this particular rock formation as Paul Bunyan's toilet.

This was a field of cairns we passed that was really cool. It was cool to imagine just how many people have collaborated over the days and years to create something so beautiful.

Corona Arch itself was absolutely massive.

Before we drove home, we stopped at a little Mexican restaurant called Gilberto's to get some food. We were absolutely ravenous, and we decided to order deep-fried cheesecake to go with our food. The food ended up being just ok, but the deep-fried cheesecake was one of the most amazing things I have ever put in my mouth. So, if you're ever in Moab, go get some deep-fried cheesecake from Gilberto's.