Expotition: Vultee Arch Trail.

"Once you get over the initial terror, it's actually quite exhilarating."

This was our first real trip on a crazy forest road with our forest-road-ready vehichle, a white Trooper named Matilda, or Tillie for short (which is confusing because Bob's hats are all made by a company named Tilley, and both are pertinent to trip-taking discussions).

Totally fun. 4.5 miles in, we parked at the trailhead parking area. The Vultee Arch Trail follows a dry creek creek up a canyon to a natural arch and vista over a valley of beautiful redrock formations, evergreen trees, and circling crows. The trail itself was 1 1/2 miles, fairly steady uphill on the way in, relatively easy.

One of the neatest things about today's voyage was a rainbow halo around the sun, which we noticed only when we stopped at one of the dry-creek crossings, and looked up to the top of the cliff. We were standing at the divide of sun and shade, and at the top of the cliff, around a little tree, a beautiful triple rainbow halo was glowing. Apparently these are caused by ice crystals at high altitudes, though you wouldn't know it for today's flawless deep blue sky. It was like a glory, though around the sun itself.  Magical and wonderful.

We met lots of nice folks on the trail, and all in all, it was lovely.

Ideas for next week:
* More hikes off of Dry Creek Road.
* Bell Trail to the weir
* Any forest roads in other spots along the creek?
* Any forest roads out by the church of the red rocks?