Silja: Capital Reef Ntl. Park & Arches Ntl. Park

Hickman Bridge

  Even though snow was predicted for the weekend, we continued on to Capital Reef. Unlike Bryce, where you are on top looking down, we drove through a beautiful, narrowing valley looking up to colourful cliff formations. From winter we had returned to fall and the sun was still strong enough to heat up the sandstone that reflected the warmth well into the night. The yellow leaves of the trees were a fantastic contrast to the red rocks.

We hiked up the cliffs for a mile to look at «Hickman Bridge», a huge red sandstone arch, surrounded by yellow, white and red sandstone that errosion had cut into, leaving cracks, fissures, holes and tunnels everywhere. The kids climbed into those holes and larger cracks until they were covered in red and yellow dust.The next day we hiked into the «Grand Wash», a currently dry riverbed running between sheer, white walls of sandstone into which the flashfloods had cut. Since the sun had not yet reached this narrow canyon so early in the day, it was still rather cold, but when climbed into cavelike holes, the air was so much warmer that the kids would not get out again. Lea would point at holes in the wall, saying «This is my fridge and here is where I...» They are all quickly willing to settle and live as Indians, but when the white RV comes into sight again they are still glad.

We spent a windy day driving north-east to Arches National Park, where we arrived late in the afternoon and since rain (or snow) is predicted for tomorrow, it was a race against the setting sun! The kids thought it was fun to run up the trail to the viewpoint for Delicate Arch even though we did not quite make it in time to see it in sunlight. On the way back we could see big, grey clouds coming towards us and Niklas complained that this holiday of driving and taking pictures did not really work for him. He would much rather go to a beach everyday. He does enjoy mountains but they had to be proper mountains with strenuous climbs involved...

He had more action coming his way: At night the wind picked up greatly and our 6-ton- RV was swaying in the gusts of wind. Then it started to rain hard and long. Luckily it cleared up enough for us to hike through "Devils Garden" in the afternoon and that was the difficult, exciting terrain that Niklas had been hoping for, but he was too cold to enjoy it much...