Island in the Sky

 

The majority of people who come to Moab are here to visit Arches National Park. But there is another national park right here, just across from Arches - Canyonlands National Park. It is Utah's largest national park, a huge area with different levels of accessibility, and has three regions: the Maze, Island in the Sky, and the Neddles. The Maze is the most remote area that so far I have never visited, but we've been to both Island in the Sky and the Needles several times. Today I'm taking you to Island in the Sky.

As the name implies, this region is located high up on a mesa. It takes about 45 to 60 minutes to drive up here from Moab. Since Arches has become almost overcrowded with visitors, Island in the Sky has grown in popularity. There were more visitors than we had ever seen before, but it was far from crowded.

You can drive along almost the entire length of the mesa without getting out of the car, but getting out and doing a couple hikes reveals the beauty and magnificence of this park. Just a very short hike from the road and there are the most amazing views.

Everywhere there are these stunning views of the canyons below - hence the name. Here is where the Colorado River and the Green River have carved this narrow "peninsula in the sky" before they merge a little bit further south and continue as the Colorado River.

Of course, the shadow picture...

Canyonlands - just like Arches - has a high number of crooked and/or dead trees.

Look at these canyons! Isn't it amazing what water can do over millions of years?

I didn't mention trees, did I?

The following photo is my favorite of all the pictures I took on this elevated island. Please note that it is NOT a tree! More like a bad hair day.

Grand Point View is at the end of the road and offers lovely hikes. We did a shorter hike that offered more stunning views.

Did I mention trees?

A dirt road goes around the entire Island in the Sky, the White Rim Road. It's only passable for 4-wheel drive; the drive takes about two days and you can stay overnight in a few very primitive camping spots. I think it would be a great adventure. You can see the road as a faint line in the following photo.

I love how ragged the cliffs of the canyons are. Fascinating. This is stuff I find highly attractive.

Good tourists that we are, we had to take a selfie. Of course I always have Nicole's Friday Face Off in my mind when we take pictures like that. In the background you can see the La Sal Mountains.

Back at the parking lot we enjoyed my friends, the ravens. They are so entertaining and I'm convinced that they have a real sense of humor.

Oh look! A dead tree!

One more look over the canyons towards the Green River.

Our next hike was up to the overlooks of Upheaval Dome. It was quite steep in places, but the trail was lovely.

The view of the eroded crater was interesting; the geology is fascinating (I wish I was more knowledgeable about it).

So far we had mainly looked to the West and the South, but now on our way back we had a beautiful clear view to the East with the La Sal Mountains on the horizon. Oh, and a dead tree smack in the center!

The most popular spot is Mesa Arch, very close to the entrance of the park. This is only a short hike and we only did it because there was one free spot in the parking lot, otherwise we would have avoided it. I wonder whether that would have been the better decision.

Years ago we had seen the sunrise here for which it is most popular. Even for that favored time, it wasn't crowded back then. This time - not so much.

Darn those cell phones! Everybody had to take a selfie with the arch in the background. And not just one, no, at least five or six, if not even more. I do understand taking a selfie, after all, we do that, too, but does it have to be an entire series of them when there are so many other people waiting for their turn or to just enjoy the view? None of them even bothered to look at the view. It was all about the selfie.

There was a very short window - a couple seconds - when we could enjoy this truly marvellous view. Isn't it stunning?

One last view from the side of the road towards the La Sal Mountains on our way out of the park.

 

Luminiscence in Münster

 

Kaefer and one of her colleagues were lucky to get tickets for Luminiscence in the cathedral of Münster, the St-Paulus-Dom. Luminiscence is a 360º immersive show of illumination, voice and music. Since my explanation might not be sufficient, here's an example (all photos and videos except for the one of the outside of the Dom are by Kaefer):

https://youtube.com/shorts/sFknNgcbEto?feature=share

The 50 minutes long show tells the story of the Dom, or better, the Dom tells its history. Quite an achievement to crowd 800 years of history into 50 minutes! This is what the Dom looks like:

It is simple and inornate on the inside and therefore offers a perfect "stage" for this kind of show.

This one reminds me of Van Gogh's "Starry Night":

The program has four acts and I'm not quite sure which video relates to which act (with the exception of the last one). I sometimes could make a guess from the voice of the speaker, but there isn't much speaking in the videos my daughter took. If you watch the videos I'd recommend to either turn up the volume or put on headphones, the sound experience is so much more impressive.

Light and shadow with Vivaldi's "Four Seasons":

https://youtube.com/shorts/0jabu1a6SsM?feature=share

"The measure of fleeting, irretrievable time" with Händel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks":

https://youtube.com/shorts/t29cPUy3jhE?feature=share

An organ light show with Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor - definitely turn up the volume!

https://youtube.com/shorts/Z_MokEcBFIc?feature=share

A little calm in blue.

Finally, the grand finale, "A symbol of eternity".

https://youtu.be/ZNWmlOW27dc

I hope you enjoyed this show of light and music. I'm very glad that Kaefer had the chance to experience this and that she shared her photos and videos with us.

Right after Thanksgiving her closest friend from their time at UC Davis came to visit her. Here they are at the Christmas market in Berlin, drinking either hot cider or white Glühwein (mulled wine). This is for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday.

Those of you who celebrate it, I wish you a merry and peaceful Christmas.

If the videos don't play for you, you can copy the link beneath each one and paste it into your browser.

Hiking in Arches

 

Maybe you remember that it was quite foggy when we arrived in Arches in the morning, but the fog eventually lifted and made way for sun and blue skies, although there were still a lot of clouds. We were now able to enjoy the Windows without any fog. (This photo is actually from the back when we were already on our hike and had escaped the crowds).

At Turret Arch we of course had to take our usual shadows photo.

Then we left the crowded area for our hike on the "primitive trail". Primitive in so far that there was no clear path made and often enough it was just rocks on the ground or cairns that would guide us.

The sky, even though blue, was covered with clouds over and over again which made for much more atmospheric photos than a plain blue sky.

However, taking those photos sometimes was a challenge because of the rapidly changing light.

The views over the park and beyond were fascinating and quite frankly breathtaking. This is such an interesting and amazing landscape that seems to change every few miles.

We were mostly alone on this hike. It seems that most people just walk up to the interesting features, but have little interest to explore this fantastic landscape beyond those. Good for us, of course.

In the distance the clouds danced around this butte and among the mesas.

When we were almost back to "civilization" we stopped for a while to enjoy the view of Double Arch in the distance.

Closer to the parking lot, these signs were everywhere, put up in the hope that people would not step onto the delicate soil that can be damaged so easily. Did people obey those signs? Sadly, there were way too many entitled jerks.

We did not hike over to Double Arch. We had done that many years ago for the sunrise and we didn't feel like joining the crowds.

With a little bit of imagination you can see a lot of figures and shapes in the rocks. Don't you think the rock on top looks like a bird?

We drove several miles through the park and then decided to hike to Skyline Arch. 

It's only a short hike, but the scenery was different - there are so many different rock formations in this park.

At the end of the road in this part of the park is a huge parking lot because many people want to hike out to Landscape Arch. We had done that hike on Christmas Day 2008, after we had stayed the night in the campgound (yes, in a tent, and it was very cold the moment we crept out of our warm sleeping bags). So we decided to take a different trail - again less crowded - and visit Pine Tree Arch where we hadn't been before. It was a lovely but cold hike - this part of the park is on a higher elevation than most of it.

On our way back we only stopped for a short while at Balanced Rock, a very fascinating rock formation. 

We mainly enjoyed watching these two ravens in the parking lot. They were highly entertaining. Look at their sweet and sassy faces - of course they are for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

We passed by Park Avenue on our way out of the park. This is a hike that we did twice before and liked very much. However, it was a bit late for this one and we still had other plans for the day.

You might have noticed that we skipped the most popular hike in the park, the one that everybody wants to take. It's the hike up to Delicate Arch, the famous landmark of the park. We had taken it into consideration, but after we had seen through our binoculars how crowded both the hiking trail and Delicate Arch were, we decided to do other hikes. See for yourself:

It looked like a tidal wave. No thank you.

We had hiked up to Delicate Arch on Christmas Eve 2008. This is what it looked like on that day, just a couple hours before sunset.

We had the entire area to ourselves...