Arches not on the license plate

“Whoa!” the fourth graders exclaim when they first see Delicate Arch during our field trip. Less than half of them have been here before though most have grown up in Moab. This is also the longest many of them have ever hiked. As they have their snack, I ask them why they think Delicate Arch is on the Utah license plate and why they think other major arches like Double Arch or Landscape Arch weren’t chosen.

Not on the license plate either. Instead, this is an arch I saw this weekend.

As they consider Delicate Arch, some students point out how one side is thinner than the other. Others say that it seems to rise up from the surrounding rock and that's what makes it special.

I agree that those are unique features of Delicate Arch. But I wonder why this arch is the most famous and iconic arch. Sometimes I want it to be because the hike up here is pretty neat, how it goes up slickrock and around the narrow ledge, and they you can say “whoa” when you turn the corner. Of course this isn't the reason but I can pretend. Anyway, I like hiking with the fourth graders to Delicate Arch because it reminds me, when I see it through their eyes, how difficult the journey is and the dramatic aspect of the approach.

But, honestly, I haven’t hiked to Delicate Arch on my own in the year since I came for this field trip last year. Instead, the place I go to the most is one that few visit. Every time I go here, I see something new and get that fresh “whoa” feeling (without needing fourth graders' eyes).

On the way there.

This weekend I found four arches I’d never seen before. It’s the kind of place that isn’t license-plate spectacular. But that’s not the kind of beauty I’m into.

Whoa!

What I do like is being able to turn the corner, or peer over the top of the canyon, and see something new that I didn’t expect. That sense of wonder is what I love.

Slickrock like waves. The La Sals mostly hiding in snow-clouds.

The beauty of this canyon isn’t something I can show you in a picture. Instead, it’s what it feels like to ramble through a trail-less areas.

It’s exploring each side-canyon to discover cracks to climb up and passages that lead to hidden treasures.

More of a hidden treasure than the rusty tin cans (not pictured).

Beetles definitely count as hidden treasures, right?

It’s finding the hidden arch where you least expect it.

There is an arch. Can you see it? Also, a balanced rock but not The Balanced Rock.

After climbing higher. See it now?

During the field trip, we'd take the students to a "secret" place nestled under a rock ledge for one of the learning stations. "Walk exactly in my footprints," I'd say, "to keep our tracks hidden so no one else comes over here." This is one of my favorite things to teach the kids-- how they can explore off-trail as long as they do so responsibly by "tiptoeing through the crypto" and not leaving footprints behind.

Just off the main trail.

Before I get back on the designated trail on the way to my car, I wait behind a rock for a while to see if anyone is coming. Then carefully pick my way back by leaping from rock to rock so as not to leave any footprints. Not that I don't want others to find solitude and share my "whoa" feelings of discovery. Just that they need to do so responsibly.

Not so stealthily dressed

On the drive back, I stopped at the iconic pullouts to watch the sunset. Because even though I have seen these views dozens of time, when the light plays with the rocks, it still makes me say "whoa".

Fiery Furnace

THE Balanced Rock