Dave & Meredith’s Travel Blog

This is the view from the window at the campground we stayed in near Moab, Utah for one night:

- Meredith

Our original plan when we left Boulder, CO was to make it to Monument Valley in one long day’s drive. We left a little late though and ran some errands along the way so, in the end, we decided to spend the night in Moab, UT. We set up camp in a nice spot, had dinner in town, and then crashed early. The next morning we had some time to visit Arches NP at sunrise since we now had some extra time to finish the trip to Monument Valley later that day. I had been to Arches and Canyonlands NPs 2 years ago on a workshop with Andy Biggs (a few of my photos from that are here) so I was able to give Meredith a pseudo-tour. By the time we got up and made it into the park, we only got about half-way in before the sun was about to rise so we stopped at a place called The Windows. These two arches (North Window and South Window) are holes in a sandstone wall. One can hike up and through the North Window and then look back to frame Turret Arch in the distance. Here’s a picture of the guy next to me doing that:

The sun rose behind some cloud cover so we didn’t get the brilliant splash of golden orange that is possible here but we had fun nonetheless. Here’s my shot:

We also took some time to wander around near Turret Arch. The sun peeked out for a bit:

It also rained a bit on us but not for too long and it made for interesting light:

Unfortunately, those were the last clouds we saw for over a week which makes for some pretty boring photography if you want a sky in the picture. More on the weather coming up.

- Dave

When we were in Boulder, our friend Paul told us about the mountain pine beetle that is destroying large lodgepole pine trees throughout Colorado.  The beetles have done most of their work on the west side of the continental divide, but recently, they have crossed over to the eastern side as well.  As we drove west from Boulder, it was shocking to see how many trees had been killed by this beetle.  There were some mountains covered in dead trees with reddish-brown needles, instead of healthy green ones.  The beetles have flourished due to a combination of milder weather (even in higher elevations) as well as a prior reluctance to manage the forests through controlled burning.

Experts estimate that within 5 years, all of the mature lodgepole pine forests in Colorado will be dead.  This is a very big issue for Colorado, with potential serious effects on the water supply, wildlife, carbon dioxide emissions, the lumber industry and tourism.

To learn more, here is a link to an article from the Rocky Mountain News on the issue (as you can see from the comments after the article, lots of people have opinions on who is to blame for the increased damage):

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jan/15/beetle-infestation-get-much-worse/

Here is a general Wikipedia article on the mountain pine beetle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_beetle

- Meredith