We stayed at another KOA in Moab and one of the nice things about it were the trees.  Normally, those types of trees would not do well in this environment, but they did have an irrigation system set up to water the various trees and plants.  I will say that I did enjoy the says we had in the KOAs and though they were a little different than what I remember of them as a child, I found them very comfortable and accommodating. 

On Monday morning, we were scheduled to take a three hour ranger guided hike through the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park.   If you go to Arches, I highly recommend this hike, especially since you can only explore this area with a National Parks Ranger, or you have to purchase a back country pass: I'm not sure what purchasing the pass all involves.

In the first two pictures above, the Ranger allowed, anyone who wanted, to crawl through a small arch that lead to a very small passage back to the entrance to the area we were exploring.   It was only a short crawl, but I decided to pass on this particular adventure.  As you can see, there were many that tried it.

One of the reasons this is a Ranger guided tour is because it was very easy to get yourself lost in the area.  Our Ranger described what we were doing was like cave exploring except there was no roof.  Also, we were informed about "busting the crust".  What that meant was, even though everything looks like it is just sand or dirt, it really wasn't.  The ground is covered in a layer of very fine sand.  The sand particles do not stick together and washes away really easily with any kind of moister, or even when the wind blows even a little bit.  The reason it looks like there are areas where the sand is "sticking", in actuality, it is a network of lichen and fibrous plant life.  This plant life takes a really long time to grow, but as it grows, it builds a network beneath the sand and forms a base to which the sand "sticks".  The problem is, if something were to break this network, like someone stepping on it, you break the network and it could take up to fifty years for the ground to recover.  That why it was stressed to us to stay on the path, which were really washes, what we refer to as dry runs, or to stay on the rock.

The hike was described as a mildly strenuous hike, and you can get an idea, from a few of the pictures, what this means.  There was one place where you had to jump up through a narrow passage.  In the picture with everyone leaning on the wall, you had to start out that way, then lean back and sit while you scooted for few feet, then you had to turn and step down through a very, very narrow passage.  In the second to last picture in the series above, there was even a spot where you had to jump across the little cut.

It was always interesting to see the different forms of life that call this climate home.  There were yucca trees, bushes of different varieties, and even tiny little Oak plants.  We learned a bit about the life of the ravens that inhabited the park.  Apparently they are intelligent enough to know when the tours were coming through, and can apparently coordinate with one another at picnic areas in order to steal food from unsuspecting tourists.   A couple of things I would like to point out in the series above is the first photo of the broken rock.  Apparently, the rock had broken a couple of months prior to this photo.  The second picture shows the arch that is called the "Kissing Turtles".  And the last photo shows "Surprise" arch.  This was a surprise because the people who found it did not see it from above when they flew over, but found it when exploring the area from beneath.

The second picture in the second row of the bush gives you a good look at what the "Crust" looks like up close.      

While the hike we took through the Fiery Furnace makes the area look like its filled with many little canyons, most of the park consists of wide open areas and vast expanses of wilderness.  You can even see the snow covered mountains in the distance.  A side note, these are called the "Salt" mountains because the first explorers saw them and thought that it was salt, rather than snow, because snow couldn't possible exist in such a warm and dry region.

As the name indicates, there are thousands of natural arches in this park.  So many, that it would take an extremely long time to try and see all of them.  We did manage to see a few of the more famous ones like the Delicate Arch pictured from a distance in the second photo.  The third and fourth are of what appears to be a field, but in actuality is a very large layer of rock.

Another famous landmark is Balancing Rock, pictured above.  This is a very impressive feature even from a distance.  There is a path that will take you directly beneath the formation, and another that will take you up nearly to the base.

I am still in awe at the scale of all the formations in the park.  Just when you feel that you get grasp of how large, or how far away something might be, you are quickly brought into reality of the size of things.  I highly recommend visiting this park and surrounding areas.  We discovered that we could easily spend several days in the area, and I really hope that sometime we get that chance.