Christmas Day | Friday, December 25, 2015
The early morning drive from Grand Junction to Arches National Park on Christmas morning was a bit slow since it had started to snow overnight and would continue to do so throughout the day. I wasn’t feeling 100% after coming down with a cold earlier in the week, so we decided to head straight to the Devil’s Garden for our annual Christmas hike to Landscape Arch to make sure that it is still standing after another year. I’ve hiked this trail in the winter for the past 8 years but this time it was the slipperiest I have ever seen it! After slipping and falling twice on the sheet of ice that was hidden beneath the fresh powder we put on our microspikes which made the rest of the hike much easier. After our visit to Landscape Arch we decided to visit Crystal Arch nearby which neither of us had been to before. It was nice to get off the main trail and have this arch all to ourselves. While we were visiting Crystal Arch started to snow pretty hard creating whiteout conditions for our hike back to the trailhead.