The Southwest - Part 9

August 24 - I am the night

So not the type to waste time (you can sleep when you're dead) and clearly making good decisions on account of dehydration, we decided to go night hiking in Arches National Park.

Arches, at least the small cone of it illuminated by my headlamp, was beautiful.  Also, headlamps are a truly amazing invention, except for one flaw: they attract bugs.  To your face.

As it turns out, Arches is very aptly, if not creatively, named.  There are dozens of naturally-formed arches scattered throughout the park, some of which you can walk right under.  One in particular, the Delicate Arch, is a beautiful and precarious formation cleverly hidden away up a mountain.

With the last rays of sunlight we read the sign describing the route to Delicate Arch: four miles.  Ha! we thought, ain't no thang.  However, as it turns out there is a world of difference between miles hiked horizontally and miles hiked vertically. 

Determined to catch the moonrise at the Arch (because we are  going to get ourselves killed one of these days  hardcore) we took off at a march for the summit.  The "trail" was marked only by rocks, cleverly hidden among other rocks.  Our ascent turned out to be not so much a "hike" as some kind of penitence for our sins.  And evidently our sins had been numerous and flagrant.

Reaching the summit (totally worth it guys) we found a number of other similarly suicidal foolish hikers.  In particular a family of Belgians who had found themselves stranded atop the mountain without  a horde of flesh-hungry insects around their face  headlamps.  The daughter approached me in the earnest hope that we could escort them to back to safety.  Spitting in the face of Darwin Because I'm a gentleman, I agreed.  (Okay, she was totally cute you guys.  We're facebook friends now!)

The hike back was quite pleasant.  We chatted, en français, with the Belgians (who by the way speak much better french than us Canadians, sorry guys).  The daughter was really quite  patient with us while we bastardized her language  charming, while her father was somewhat less charming (but considerably more racist).

Getting back to the car in the twilight hours, we took off for a nearby campsite because we're cheap crazy.  For those of you that don't know, setting up a tent in the dark is like running through a forest lathered in honey, in that it should never be attempted again.

It was also around this time that I discovered that mankind's greatest invention is not the wheel, the alphabet or even penicillin, but rather the pillow, and if you don't believe me try laying your head down anywhere in the state of Utah without one.

Also, do not travel with perfectionists.  Don't even befriend them.  They're bad for you.