Double Arch

Sunday
I was up first this morning, made some tea and took it to Roger and Jen, then I sat with mine in the living area, and watched the sun rise through the trees and the mist, hanging in the valley below, gradually rise and dissipate. This morning, we followed the Auxier Ridge trail out to Courthouse Rock. The views from the ridge were just beautiful, and the colours of the leaves seemed a bit brighter. We passed quite a number of backpackers, heading back after spending the night camping out in the wild. From Courthouse Rock we picked up another trail and continued to Double Arch shown in my Blip. From this angle, it’s not clear why it is called Double Arch, but where there appears to be a recess above the main opening, that is actually another narrow opening. Off to the right, there were steps cut out in the rock to access the top of the Arch, which Roger and Jen did, but I decided to stay at the bottom! In this area we noticed quite a number of trees with huge leaves, which I have since discovered are big leaf magnolias - the leaves can grow to over 2 1/2 feet long, and the blooms are also huge - we shall have to try and get back next year in late May, early June, when they are in flower! The trail continued on and runs into Tunnel Ridge road, a gravel road, now closed to traffic, which we followed back to the car. It was a total of almost 7 miles with a number of ups and downs, so we were quite tired, and definitely ready for our picnic lunch, since by now it was well after 2pm, and we needed more than the granola bar and fruit we had enjoyed en route! In the afternoon we just did a couple of short trails to Chimney Top Rock and Princess Arch, before heading back to the cabin and a similar evening to last night. Unfortunately the clouds were gathering in the afternoon and rain was in the forecast for tomorrow