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My brother was in Utah for work and wanted to head down south to do a bit of hiking. We tossed a few ideas around and found out Kendall had yet to visit Arches National Park. By 5:30am Kendall, Spencer, Clint and I were leaving Orem and driving to Moab. We arrived at the Devils Garden trail head at 9:30am and started hiking the loop soon after.

Kendall on a Fin on the Devils Garden primitive loop.

We took a long break at Private Arch to toss the frisbee around and take some photos.

We ran into hordes of people at Double O’ Arch …. as always Arches was packed . I took a few more photos on the way back to the car and managed to take photos of only one Arch on our 6-7mile hike. Awesome.

When we made it back to the trailhead the parking lot was jam packed so we got out of there as fast we could. We then drove out on the 4×4 road to Eye of the Whale Arch.

After we left Arches and made a quick trip into Moab to get some lunch and fill up on gas before we drove out toward Canyonlands – Island in the Sky.

We set up camp then drove into the park, we passed right by Mesa Arch because the parking lot was packed and a tour bus was just unloading. We drove down the road a bit to the Green River Overlook and enjoyed the view.

Soon we were back on the upheaval Dome road looking for the unmarked trailhead to Flase Kiva. I flaked on hiking out to False Kiva in March due to weather and cloud cover so I was pretty excited considering how big of a pain in the ass it was getting all the GPS information for the hike.

“The name False Kiva arises from the uncertainty around the circle of stones’ origins and purpose, not whether it is really an authentic” … more about Flase Kiva here.

Once you know where you are headed navigation is simple, was a pretty easy hike and the light was a bit dull but I had a great time.

We slogged back up the steep hill towards the car as the last of our daylight faded. We made it back to the car, tossed our packs in, and drove back towards the park exit. As we drove out we noticed the empty Mesa Arch parking lot so we stopped and got the camera gear out to hike the short trail to the Arch. The full moon had yet to rise so we took some long exposure shots on Mesa Arch in the dark and a bit of light painting with head lamps and my little LEDS.

Kendalls Ring on Mesa Arch

We made it back to camp just after 10pm, ate dinner and did a bit more painting before we called it a night.

In the morning we packed up first thing and drove home to spend mothers day with our families.