The Fiery Furnace

Fiery Furnace hike - Arches National Park

Lars, Julie and Ilsa on the Fiery Furnace hike

By: Lars

Out of all the hikes and new experiences, we were most excited about a hike in Arches National Park called the Fiery Furnace. This hike involves a permit because it is like a maze and you could get lost. The day before the hike, my family and I watched a short video that explained the rules of preserving the wildlife and the obstacles to come during our expedition. After the video, a park ranger came in to review the rules and tell us a couple of other things like, there are over twenty tiny brown arrows pointing in the vague direction of the route. Also, it is good to keep quiet to see more wildlife and so others can have a solitary experience. The guy said it took him five hours to complete the route and he only found 9 arrows out of the whole hike (I think that last part was an exaggeration though)! The next day, we got prepared for our journey through the labyrinth. When we started our hike, we were finding arrows here and there! It was way easier to find our way than the park ranger said (they were still pretty hidden though).  However, the scramble was challenging in the sense there were narrow ledges and tight squeezes. At the very end of our 2 mile hike, my family and I spotted 27 arrows in total (way more than the park ranger)!

Lars climbing and jumping and making his mom nervous 

Note the small arrow on the lower part of the rock

Ray and Ilsa in the Fiery Furnace

Photography 

by Ilsa

On the trip so far, there have been incredibly beautiful flowers all around.  With regard to that, I decided to work on my photography skills. My mom and I are going to do a fun project together where we print off flower photos and make note cards! So far, things have gone great! Here are some photos that I took that you might want to see...