After a morning hiking to the Delicate Arch (click here for that blog from last week), Hannah and I drive with Molly’s family to the parking lot that serves as the trailhead for both the Windows Arches and the Turret Arch as well as the Double Arch Trail in mid-April 2022.
We start off on what is called the primitive trail (by that I mean poorly marked). It’s a longer route to the Windows and Turret Arch, but as you may know, Hannah and I rarely pass up a chance at more Fitbit steps. Counseling has not helped our neurosis. By the way, arched windows have square bottoms and an arch or half-circle on top.
Predictably we lose our way on the primitive trail but are always within a few hundred feet of the backside of the window arches themselves. We never are lost lost.
Eventually back on the Windows trail we climb to the rock beneath the arch for pictures. Agile-lite at the age of 74, I remember days gone by when I, too, could scamper up and down the sandstone rock as Owen and Max do today.
Five hours into our day, we then hike the half mile to one more arch, the Double Arch.
Foolishly I follow the others 35′ up to the ledge beneath the Double Arch. Definitely not my best choice. And the thing is, I know it as I soon as I am mid-way up the rock wall that trouble awaits on my descent. Yet I continue. Pride goeth before the fall.
More than ready to return to terra firma, I need all the support our son-in-law Tip can give me. Facing the rock, knowing at any moment I can slide 35′ down the rock wall, I use Tip’s offered foot as a toehold. My whole body tightens as I somehow inch down the rock wall finding the smallest of “Free Solo” cracks in the stone. I make multiple promises to the Universe that I will not be so foolish again. There is enough fear in my heart to make that a believable pledge.
At last, I’m off the ledge. I will live to hike another day.
After a day on the trail at 77F, Owen and Max head to the pool while Molly and Tip “chill” in the hot tub with Hannah. Moi? Oh, I’m back at the condo doing what I love – writing a first draft of each of our two hikes, editing my pictures for the blog, and, yes, napping. Later I join them in the hot tub. I am no fool.
If I am to guess, I won’t be surprised it the pool and the hot tub will be the highlight of our time in Utah for Owen and Max. It would be for me if I were eight or ten.
over60hiker 
Wow! High praise for Grandfather Hiker Supreme. What 74 year old does that?
So. . .after not receiving posts for ages, I was taught to go into spam hell, or whatever and find my lost emails. My new Apple watch stays one pause. . .my satellite TV is not the best, may go to a “hot spot” Staying techie is hard to do.
And YOU ALL are in Utah? We’ll in be Park City area in July (want more hiking ?). Pam is getting married in an abandoned church, which is a hike. Mid July – will be an adventure for me, and another milestone without my mate. May of last year was his last “healthy” month, meningitis in June. I have loved to read the travels and adventures of two of the funnest fitist (should be a word) in my world!
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We trekked around Arches back in prehistoric times, the early 1970s, with Colorado friends, searching for arrowheads, Visitors could wander or climb anywhere, no rules or regulations. Time has been gentle on those gorgeous rock formations, not so much on me.
Arrowheads! How cool is that! Next week’s blog describes the Landscape Arch where in 1991 a 60 ton slab of stone fell during the day where hikers and just tourists were allowed. Clearly they are not allowed there any more.