David and I spent the day bumping around Arches National Park with a late afternoon hike up to Delicate Arch timed so that we would enjoy a lunar eclipse just after sunset. The weather was perfect and the sky was clear.

Too bad my pictures really didn’t turn out all that great.

Oh well. “A day in southern Utah is better than __________________” (fill in blank).

David and I separated on our hike back to the vehicle so we can cover more country. As I top a hill I see the little arch we had found on our previous arch hunt. And thirty feet to the east is Mitchell Arch! The only thing that kept us from seeing it on the previous visit was a single skinny cedar tree.

I had to hike all the way back to the vehicle and bring David back so he could enjoy the humor of the situation.

I was on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia when I got a cell phone call letting me know that I had been laid off from my network engineer job of eleven years at Novell Inc. The layoff was company wide but that didn’t help the feeling of panic.

This really puts a crimp in my arch hunting plans for the next year of unemployment.

The previous week, a large boulder to the side of the falls had slide and crushed a hiker to death which lent a rather macabre feeling to the location.

It was suppose to be a 12.8 mile round-trip hike but we became so mesmerized by the hike that we walked right past the side canyon that held Sam Pollock Arch. Over a mile later we decided to check the GPS and discovered our mistake. It was tempting just to keep going.

Backtracking to the mouth of the side canyon, we discovered the next half mile or so was bushwacking and climbing around huge boulders. This was exhausting!

Just over a mile and a half up this side canyon we find Sam Pollock Arch and are reminded of why we came. What a great place to visit.

We rest at the back of the arch long enough to eat a snack and let our legs cramp up. Then it was back down the canyon and back to civilization.

By then the wind had picked up and it was much colder. We were tired and stumbling along as best as we could. Not as fun as the hike in.

Typical Utah Spring weather.

Along the way we visited Adamsville, Kanosh, Milford and Minersville so I could take at least one picture and be able to say that I had been there.

We are looking for Mitchell Arch. This is a fairly small and insignificant arch but we are desperate to get out and do some hiking. In spite of a fair amount of snow and lots of mud, it felt good to just get out.

We did find a small Class D arch but no Mitchell Arch.

Saturday, the 18th of January, David and I drive south to Arches National Park near Moab Utah. David and I hike to Clover Canyon to verify the existence of a natural arch there (and to enjoy some sun). Along the way we stop and visit Magic Mystery Bridge.

I had hiked to this Clover Canyon years before but did not find an arch. This time we suspected that we would need to drop into the bottom of the canyon to see the arch.

There is only one place that allows you to descend the cliffs to the bottom and the passage is marked by Indian petroglyphs that can be seen from the top cliff edge. The method of decent requires some tracking north along the cliff until we can jump to the top of a sidewalk which drops a short distance. Instead of descending this rock fin into a deep crack, we climb up, over and then down some rough rocks sticking on the side of the cliff wall, pass behind and then through some brush and gain access to the top of a second fin that is separated from the original cliff edge. From here we jump a deep crevice to the top of a third fin and carefully walk to the far end of the fin to discover a way to climb down the broken rock to the petroglyphs and then gain access to the canyon floor.

From the bottom of the canyon we walked a short distance northward to find Clover Canyon Arch about half way up the cliff and nearly unnoticeable from the top. The natural arch is almost big enough to qualify as a class B arch except that the gap between the arch and the cliff wall is only a couple of inches. Not really much of an arch.

David and I are on our way home that night when we are stopped by a Russian couple (now living in Los Angeles) who ask us for a ride. They had run out of gas on I-70 about 20 miles short of Green River. It is out of our way but we have plenty of time so we give them a ride back to their vehicle with a can of gas. They can’t understand why they were able to drive a hundred miles from Salina without seeing a single town or gas pump.

Welcome to the San Rafael Swell area of Utah!

Come prepared.