Owl Rock, Arches and Moab

Pre-Arches
After we wrapped up our Horseshoe Canyon hike, we headed on down to the Arches National Park area to find a camping spot for the night. Since it was after 5:00pm on a Saturday night, there was ABSOLUTELY no BLM camping spots. So we continued down the road found a turnoff for Castle Rock and ended up finding an awesome campground that was free; hooray!

We set up camp on and headed out on a hike before getting dinner ready. Before eating the bountiful camp-stove cooked dinner, we toasted the day's adventures and read our climbing book for the next day's big adventure: Owl Rock. As I read the description, I grew more excited and thought it would be hard to sleep. But considering how much we had hiked, my head hit the pillow and I didn't wake up until I heard a dreadful sound: lots of rain and wind. CRAPPY PAPPY! We got back to sleep and crossed our fingers that the rain would stop for our big Sunday climb.

Hooray! Our wish came true and the rain had stopped. Unfortunately, the overcast skies didn't promise that we had seen the end of the day's rain. Solution: pack up quickly and have a quick bite in the car as we drove to our Owl Rock climb in Arches.



While we were packing up camp, the Beau had noticed an interesting artifact peaking from beneath the red sand. Upon closer inspection the artifact was unearthed. We did our best to figure out what it was and what purpose it served, but no luck. So we buried the artifact so it would rest in peace until another curious camper discovered it :-)

Arches Arrival
We arrived at Arches and made our way to Balance Rock and finally Owl Rock. The skies were threatening our ascent, but our will prevailed. The Beau got on his harness, shoes, gathered his awesome climbing rack and got climbing up the crack. It didn't look like such a bad climb, so when he asked if I was ready, I yelled "YES"!

Owl Rock proved to be VERY challenging for me for multiple reasons:
- I haven't been climbing like a good girl
- I had to retrieve all of the pieces that had been placed by the Beau
- I was climbing on Sandstone; a rock I had never climbed before
- I like the whine

I did the best I could to make it up that crack! My body twisted and turned in ways I thought were inconceivable and then I reach a point where I was out of breath and could go no further. I yelled and yelled up to the Beau and he didn't seem to hear me. I told him I wanted down. No answer. I yelled up to him, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?" His reply, "Waiting for you to climb up." I was ABSOLUTELY flabbergasted!!! He was not going to let me quit and he was telling me "NO"?!?!?! Well, since I had no choice, I bucked up and set to climbing. I was sooooo out of breath when I reached the top, but was very thankful that the Beau didn't let me quit. As I looked out over Arches, I was very happy :-)

The next task was to get down. After a quick rappel refresh, I headed down first and the Beau followed. We were grinning from ear-to-ear at our accomplishment and then the rain began to fall. Talk about PERFECT timing!!

After we gathered our gear, we did the tourist-y things and checked out all of the amazing arches the park had to offer. The Beau ended up falling off the ledge on the way back from the delicate arch, but then he used his mad climbing skills to get back up. Whew :-D

I also got to touch the bottom of another famous arch and that made me feel pretty cool as well. On the way back to the car, the Beau ended up getting attacked by a wet hand monster, but he evaded danger yet again after the wet hand monster evaporated - beware of wet hand monsters!!

After the park, we headed to our hotel in Moab, took a much needed shower, and headed out for some brew and grub. There's nothing like being clean, eating a great dinner and downing a couple of beers. After dinner, we looked out the window and witnessed an amazing downpour; a downpour of rain that we had to walk through to get to the hotel. Soakin' good times. Other than the rain, dinner was a perfect ending to a perfect day.