The Arches

The next day we visited The Arches National Park. It’s very popular, and on my visit in 2015, I felt it was just too popular. The entrance queue was a mile long and most of the car parks were full. The walks had too many people. However, we managed to have a much shorter queue when we arrived, and park policy has changed, so that they stopped anyone from entering shortly after we arrived. As a result, it was much easier to go to any particular place and there weren’t quite so many people. The park is enormous and is a sandstone desert.

Our first stop was balancing rock.

The park has at least two thousand rock arches as well as many other rock erosion formations.

We then visited Delicate Arch, probably the most famous in the park, as it’s on every Utah number plate. Shortly into the walk we could see the arch from a distance.

It’s very difficult to take a photo of it without people.

On the way we saw some petroglyphs.

And expansive views.

There was a bird on one of the pillars near the arch.

And the views from the arch were great.

Later, we walked to Broken Arch.

And saw Tapestry Arch.

The rock is all called slip rock, but it’s very easy to walk on it, even when you’re at angles where you’d slide off anything else. It’s very beautiful country, and it’s no wonder the park is so popular.

Petroglyphs and Corona Arch

On our second day in Moab, we visited one of the petroglyph sites on the highway.

Later we walked to three arches, including Corona Arch. It is located next to a deep bowl.

Another of the arches here has two separate holes.

In the arch there were some hanging gardens growing where water trickles down. With moss.

We saw some yuccas, which are native to the area. I thought of mum and her love for yuccas!

At Moab

The first day at Moab, it was decided to walk up the trail to the rim. This trail is also a favourite with off-road vehicles, as is a trail on the opposite side of the river canyon.

As we walked up the trail we met some going up, and some going down.

The other side of the canyon had a rock window high up.

As we got further up, the view was magnificent.

Unfortunately, I was very tired after the trials of Toronto airport and the heat of the day, so I didn’t make it up to the rim, but sat in the shade, did some embroidery and waited for everyone to come back. It was very pleasant.

Petroglyphs Provincial Park

On 6th October we visited Petroglyphs Provincial Park. It’s renowned for the largest petroglyph collection in Canada. The petroglyphs were buried in moss until 1954 when they were shown to archeologists. Unfortunately, after that they were left uncovered, and they rapidly deteriorated, losing more than half their inscription depth. A special building has been built around the petroglyphs so they’re now kept at a constant humidity, so they won’t deteriorate much anymore. The local indigenous population has requested that no photos be taken, so I couldn’t give you any. Suffice it to say, they’re worth seeing.

In the same park, there’s a meromictic lake - McGinnis Lake. Because it is very still, sediment stays in the same place it’s deposited, so 10,000 year cores can be taken. No fishing or swimming or anything else that could disturb the lake is allowed.

After visiting the lake, we went to Toronto to catch our planes the next day to Moab in Utah.

Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries

Today we’re concentrating on hollows rather than mounds.

The Ancient peoples had a very large flint quarry within their lands. This quarry had already been mined for thousands of years, and the flint was prized all over North America, partly because it comes in a rainbow of colours.

As a result of their quarrying activities, a number of hollows were formed creating small wetlands. Flint Ridge was already a different ecosystem from the surrounding area because the flint is so extensive and lies close to the surface, but the wetlands encouraged even more diversity.

Halloween

I’d have to have my eyes closed to have missed the enormous number and glitz of the Halloween decorations around here. One night, I opened the outside door where I am staying, and got a fright. This is what I saw.

Everyone has something. There’s an enormous Halloween display a few doors up.

At night all the lights take over - just like Christmas. Thank goodness we don’t go in so much for it, and that I’ll be on my way home before the fun starts.

Leo Petroglyphs

These petroglyphs were probably created by the Fort Ancient people, on sandstone. They’ve been weathering badly, so a shelter has been built over them. There appear to be about forty separate carvings, but a number are unclear.

Seip Earthworks

This is a very similar site to the Hopewell Earthworks site, in that most of the mounds have been ploughed flat over the years. It is different because part of the site has been delineated with pieces of wood where they found evidence of an artisan workshop that produced some of the articles that were buried with the dead. 

The big mound was used to bury more than 100 people, which was also unusual. 

Also, the big mound was built in several steps.

From the top of the mound you can see the extent of the site, as the grass has been left to grow where the mound walls once stood.

It’s evidently very similar to several other sites.

Newark Earthworks

There are two parks in Newark that each have parts of the biggest Hopewell earthworks site - the biggest on earth. The first part I saw is an absolutely humongous circle. 

In the centre of the circle is an effigy called the eagle - it’s basically a mound  with two wings coming off it. The circle is really beautiful - perfectly symmetrical.

The other park retains the square and an octagon and an observation platform. Unfortunately it’s the location of a golf course, which has located its paths over the mounds and its bunkers aren’t in very good places either. Over the years, mowing has obviously substantially reduced the size of the mounds, but at least they’re mainly still there - unlike the original mounds between the two sites, that have been destroyed by houses.

Observation platform 

Final Day of the Class

I’ve been working very hard all week on the black and white piece.

And then the coloured version. 

I finished it on the last day. Both versions went through multiple iterations before they were acceptable. It was a long and arduous process, but I’m happy with what I’ve achieved.

Fort Hill Earthworks

This site was different to the others, as you walk up the original path to approach the earthworks and mounds, and it appears not to have been cleared. You go up past moss

And through woodland, catching glimpses of the mounds above.



As you can see from the map, it’s a steep climb. I didn’t have time to follow the entire trail, and most of the tracks looked fairly unused.

I came back again a week later, and walked the entire Fort Trail. A week had made a lot of difference because most trees have lost all their leaves so it’s much easier to see the views over the valleys. All of them would be a stiff climb.

The path went inside the earthworks, and travelled the length of the interior.

It was a really beautiful place and I was glad I came back.