Fiery Furnace Hike, Arches National Park

We get up early, pack up the trailer, and head out to Arches National Park. We have tickets to take the ranger-led Fiery Furnace Hike, which is a 3-hour hike through the "fins" area of the park. They require tickets or permits to limit the number of hikers in this area of the park. From what I understand, several years ago they found that this area of the park was being spoiled from too many hikers, plus it is easy to get lost in the fins.

It's a beautiful sunny morning. We drop off the trailer at the visitors center and head out to the park. The park looks wonderful with the blue skies (versus the gray skies of Wednesday when we were here).

We get to the Fiery Furnace area of the park, where we'll hike between the fins:

The hike last 3 hours and is fun and interesting. They offer this hike twice/day and take 25 people on each hike.

The hike is listed as Moderately Strenuous. It really isn't that strenuous; however, I was glad that I wasn't any wider :-) Some narrow passages on the hike!

After the hike we go over to Delicate Arch viewpoint, eat our packed lunch and hike up to the viewpoint. We enjoy the occasional wildflower on the hike to the viewpoint. There aren't a lot of flowers in bloom, but I appreciate the ones that are in bloom.

We drive out of the park to pick up the trailer and find a note on our trailer door. A friend of mine is at Arches today, recognized our trailer and left us a note. They just arrived at Arches today, but we are leaving. Very frustrating to be this close, but not see each other. Sometimes timing is everything.

We drive around two hours to Green River KOA and call it a day.