Search for Top of the World Arch - Trip Notes for 01/01/2013

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Last updated 02/20/2019

(Fig. 01)

01/01/2013 Trip Notes: As Harvey and I arrived 45 minutes early at parking area #1 for our second hike of the day, we decided to try this hike on our own. as we headed west from the parking area, we were confronted with the view in (Fig. 01) before we turned south toward some higher ridges. Notice the sharply worn ridges in the red sandstone outcrop on the right. The close-up of this is shown in (Fig. 02) below. It’s amazing how the wind and rain has worn away the softer sandstone and left these sharp ridges of harder material. They almost look like ‘shark’s teeth’. Each of the many brightly colored sandstone formations that we encountered on this hike were amazingly unique. The one in (Fig. 03) reminded me of the head and snout of some type of land lizard. The one in (Fig. 04) somewhat resembles the scaled head of a snake. It always amazes me to find desert plants and cactus (Figs. 05 & 07), that seemingly grow right out of the rock. We also found the home of a Desert Tortoise (Fig. 06), though peering in we were unable to spot it. As we headed toward the ridge that we wanted to climb, we hike several washes (Figs. 08 & 09) that took us into some rather deep ravines along some cliffs that were more than 100 feet high (Fig. 10). Unfortunately, we reached a point where the difficulty in climbing would have taken us, counting the return, until after sunset, causing us to turn around and head back. Following a different wash (Fig. 11) on the was back we were again confronted with some unique geology. The area in (Fig. 12) looks like ripples in water that were hand carved into the sandstone. The final picture, probably a couple of miles away (Fig. 13), was taken at 20x-zoom as the late afternoon sun hit the distant horizon. Even though we never reached our goal, this turned out to be a very beautiful, colorful hike.

(Fig. 02)

(Fig. 03)

(Fig. 04)

(Fig. 05)

(Fig. 06)

(Fig. 07)

(Fig. 08)

(Fig. 09)

(Fig. 10)

(Fig. 11)

(Fig. 12)

(Fig. 13)

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