Into the Fiery Furnace...

At large in Arches NP

Time for one of the (many) highlights of this trip - the must-do activity here in Moab (according to Trip Advisor), a hike through the Fiery Furnace!   The Fiery Furnace is a labyrinthine maze of narrow sandstone canyons and deep fins and is one of the most spectacular areas in the whole of the park.  

Here's some more info about it from a local climber's website: http://climb-utah.com/Moab/furnace.htm

Surprise Arch.  

To hike through the Fiery Furnace you need a permit and the Park Service only allows a maximum of 150 visitors total a day.  Hiking without a guide (either from one of the tour operators or from the Park Service) is strongly discouraged as you would almost be guaranteed to get lost.  To discourage people trying it on their own, the trail isn't marked and there are no maps available either, so you really do have to go with a local guide - both for your own safety as well as them knowing where to take you to see all the amazing sights.

The Park Ranger-led tours are free, but book up months in advance, so we did our trip with from the Moab Adventure Center.  It is marked as "moderate to vigorous" with some steep drop-offs and involving some scrambling, so we were a little bit nervous about the physical aspect of the hike - not to mention the 105 degree temperature forecast for the day!  As it turned out, temperature-wise, the hike was perfect - down at the base of the fins, in the narrow canyons, it was perfectly cool and shaded.  It was only when we broke cover into the full glare of the sun that the heat became oppressive almost instantly - fortunately this was only for the last 15mins as we hiked out of the Furnace into the..um...fire?

Look!  No hands!!  Getting the hang of the

all-important bum-shuffle technique

Our day began horribly early at 5.45am as we were due to meet at the Adventure Center at 7.15am.  As expected, "breakfast" at the Super 8 was even worse than the breakfast at Howard Johnson, so we headed over to Denny's next door for a very quick breakfast to fuel us up for the day's activities.  Breakfast was surprisingly good (I'm back on my meal plan, so oatmeal for me!) and, duly nourished, we headed over to meet our guide and the rest of our group.  Our guide was this lovely young guy called Cort, probably mid twenties, and who was very proud of his new baby daughter.  He showed us all a picture (very proud daddy!) and she was, indeed, very cute.

The first stop of the day was at the Visitor Center for the park, where we watched a video by the Park Service talking about how to behave, where we could and couldn't walk and how to make sure we were responsible visitors who helped minimize the impact of tourism and preserve the natural beauty.  Bottom line: only walk on the sandstone and the wash, stay off the cryptobiotic soil and make as little noise as possible.  The Fiery Furnace is one of the few places where you can't hear any noise from human activity, so the idea is to be as silent as possible to preserve that special atmosphere.

The hike was fantastic.

"You want me to go through where??...."

It was bloody hard work in places and involved a fair amount of scrambling, climbing, bum-shuffling along ridges and canyon crevices, and crawling on your hands and knees through a couple of very low, tight spots.  It wasn't too terrifying but, all the same, wasn't for the very faint of heart and you certainly had to have a basic amount of fitness and agility to cope with scampering over the rocks.  I wondered if they filtered who goes on the trips and how or whether they'd have to have delicate conversations with would-be hikers who weren't in good enough shape.  

Pointy rocks a-plenty in the heart of the Furnace

Cort was an excellent guide.  In addition to his main priority of keeping us all from finding inventive ways to hurt and/or kill ourselves with impromptu tumbles into canyons, he was also extremely knowledgeable about the area, its history, plants and wildlife.  I didn't know, for example, that capers are juniper berries.  We also sampled some of the local plants - one whose seeds tasted like wasabi, tiny and hot and another plant whose berries, when sucked, had this fantastically refreshing sour taste.  Just the thing after 3hrs of hard core hiking.  He also knew when not tell us we were crawling through a cave crawling with spiders, Indiana Jones-style, until after we'd come out on the other side.  He doubled his tip right there.

Of course we then had to go back into the cave to go have a look at the enthusiastic arachnids - just to freak ourselves out.  He found us a little crevice, located the mother lode and then handed us the torch to have a look for ourselves.  I couldn't see them first of all, then I spotted one spider (a spindly little bugger) and then another one, and thought to myself "Huh - well, that's not that impressive" - until I angled the torch a little differently and POW!  Holy crap!  There they were, all webby and tangly and just there and more bizarrely, the entire web seemed to be vibrating.  I don't know if it was a trick of the light or something, but they seemed to be pulsing up and down, reflecting and catching the torchlight in a very spooky manner.  I think I then said something like "garrggghhh" as I very very rapidly hightailed it out of there.  Thanks very much, thats quite enough spiders for today.

So that was fun.  Almost as much fun as the Zombie Chipmunk.

Survived the first true bum-shuffle test!

Yep, there's a standing little pool of water, down by the base of one of the fins, that obviously serves as year-round watering hole for the local wildlife.  Alas, it also served as The End for some of the more dyspraxic of Mother Nature's creatures - the creepiest of which was a chipmunk, who had obviously slipped and fallen in and died, but was standing bolt upright, under the water, with his head aloft and his front paws up, like he was looking right at you.  The picture isnt very clear but Cort said it was one of the creepiest things he'd seen, so for the guide to say that, it was obviously quite something!

Fortunately Zombie Chipmunk stayed beneath the water, peering up, and didn't freak us out further by chasing us, so we continued along our way, passing by other notable sights such as Skull Arch, Jabba the Hut, Doorway Arch and a black widow spider, cocooned up in her funnel web nest.  Fortunately we didn't come across the highly deadly Faded Pygmy rattlesnake - one bite from that little sucker would have you joining the chipmunk at the Pearly Arches before you could say "Ouch!  What was that that bit m....?"

Cort shows us how its done

We also saw, and heard, the Red Canyon Wren who had a beautiful upward lilting song.  I also saw a daddy long legs and when I commented on it, discovered that - in America - daddy long legs are spiders!  I then wondered who would win if you locked an American daddy long-legs into a box with a British daddy long-legs in some sort of Anglo American insect death match - til I realized the Brit bug would definitely cop it.  Boo to that.

Anyway, after about 3.5hrs, we'd completed the 3 mile round trail and I was feeling very relieved, as well as completely knackered.  Having done the hike, you can completely understand why they don't want anyone wandering in there without a guide - you would be disoriented and lost instantly, with no hope of finding the exit on your own.  For our first hike in Arches, it was simply fantastic - well worth the (inevitably) sore legs tomorrow!

Next up, a sunset Hummer safari in the Devil's Gulch!  But first, time to go check in (again) at the Ramada....

127 Hours, anyone?

Honeycomb rock formation

Jabba the Hut Rock

For some reason, this rock made me think of ice-cream

Yep, thats me.

Yep, that's Lori.

Emerging from Spider Cave

Crawling like a Bat out of Spider Cave Hell

Can you spot Zombie Chipmunk in this picture?

There's a Black Widow spider in here somewhere -
 plus the eaten husk of the male below

Work those Canyon angles!

Hanging ten!

Yes.  Right now, life is goooooood.

Cort leaping into action to free-climb
the rock face

We came.  We saw.  We conquered.
The Fiery Furnace from a distance, on our triumphant drive home.