Dow Williams wrote:You should have seen quite the crowd in Arches I imagine.

It was interesting. I didn't know about the Utah school vacation ahead of time, but honestly I would have gone anyway. Who cares about all the college boys and grade-school kids; thousands of college-age females aren't exactly something that would drive me in the opposite direction.

But I arrived at the park at 07:45 on Saturday morning, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. After looking for SP people at the visitor center, I went to the Devils Garden trailhead because I knew from the posted plans that Aaron's group would be hiking that trail. The parking lot was mostly empty, and I grabbed a spot wide enough for me to open the driver's door all the way (hate narrow parking spots). That was at 08:45. I hiked the Primitive Loop counterclockwise, and I got back to the trailhead a bit before noon.

Holy crap. I remember wishing I had my wide-angle lens to get a photo of that clusterfuck of a parking lot. An endless row of cars was all along the shoulder of the road as far as could be seen, and I think there were people walking a half mile just to get to the trailhead.

Castlereagh wrote:DayHiker, did you or any other SP'ers venture off and do any other hikes or climbs in that area? Those Delicate Arch pics definitely seemed crowded, but you guys could've definitely gotten away from them pretty easily.

In the morning, I did the Primitive Loop trail, as mentioned above, and I saw very few people on the back side of that. There were LOTS of people coming in the developed part as I was heading out, though.

That Devils Garden area is pretty cool, and I remember thinking if I had more time, I could spend the whole day going off-trail and exploring the labyrinth of rock fins and other class-2 and 3 sandstone stuff.

For Delicate Arch, I had 3-year-old DayHikerJr with me (and my wife), so I didn't really care about silence or solitude. It was about hiking with the kid on a fun trail and slickrock.

Around here, and all over the desert and Colorado Plateau, it's pretty easy to get away from people if you want to.

about a month ago, on a separate climbing trip, we took a day off of climbing and I chose to do a 10k in arches on some virgin ground. I found a trail I had never been on before and crossed under and/or by three separate arches, none of which I had ever seen before and I have been in the park a dozen or so times....never saw another human on the trail.....the place can be quite magical if you visit at the right time in terms of lesser folks and prime natural light...this school holiday deal had to be their biggest weekend of the year....if you think about, weather wise, it makes sense I guess...they ran me out of town, but then I did have a cooler full of 6% beer not to mention other substances considered vile in Utah

Thanks, Elves, greetings from across the pond and the river that runs thru me.

This thread has had some cleaning done. Bob, Dave, and Aaron deserve better than having to see bickering going on in a thread thanking them.

I only just noticed that Dave K has also stepped down. My thanks to you too Dave.

First time I met Dave was above 12000', near the Palisade Glacier in July 2005. His party was about to head up Mt. Sill. I was getting over a nasty case of AMS and felt lousy. But it was great to meet another summitposter up there

Most recently I saw him at a wedding last year of some dear friends of ours, who are also on SP -- Dragger and Craig Peer. That was a wonderful event.

GOOD JOB

Dave K has a great dry sense of humor... but why does he hate America?

Thanks everybody!