God's Ancient Art at Fischer Towers

Six years ago we were given the advice to visit Fischer Towers--about 26 miles northeast of Moab. That's basically in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by desert. We remember that hike so fondly that we wanted to see this unique area again. So even though it was sunny and the temperature was over 90 degrees, we braved the heat for a repeat performance of the towers.

We just got far enough into the hike to turn the first corner when we began to hear voices high over head. Now we have heard voices in our heads before, but this seemed WAY over our heads. Then we saw movement at the top of the tower named "Ancient Art." That's the tall one in the picture below with the fancy curly-q on top.

Wait! There seems to be an extra something on the top of that curly-q.

That "something" talks and moves! We even heard some clapping and a shout of victory. We didn't have our good camera, but we could see that was a person on top of the curly-q!

It's hard to put some scale to this picture, but that person was very high above us on Ancient Art.

When we moved further down our hike, we could see a different angle of the curly-q. A second climber was making the final approach to the top, while two more on the right were holding the safety ropes.

We applauded and yelled "good job!" when we witnessed the second person make it to the tippy-top. Even though they were so high above us, we could hear their "thank you" response very clearly. From the picture below we could see that other towers like "Titan" and "Echo" were taller than "Ancient Art," but none quite as ornate.

If you look carefully, you can see a tiny dot in the middle at the bottom of the picture below. That tiny dot is Denisa.

Watching the climbers was a fun beginning to our hike, but we finally continued. That would include doing a bit of climbing of our own. But ours was only on an 8-foot ladder.

The trails here at Fischer Towers can be narrow with steep drop-offs

but we still love the views out here in the middle of no where.

On our hike back to the pickup, we met the four people that we had watched make the summit to the curly-q. It was fun to talk with them, and we exchanged phone numbers so we could text them the pictures we had taken from the ground. They are four people that have relocated to Utah from all over the country, and became friends because of their common love of climbing up tall things. This was the first curly-q summit for three of them, led by the more experienced female climber that had done it once before. 

They started the climb about four hours earlier this morning, and they were glad to be getting out of the heat as we neared the parking lot. We were too. We end the blog with one more picture of Denisa in the bottom left corner, staring up at another of God's wonders. You can see the climber at the top of the curly-q. That mountain might be named "Ancient Art," but we think of Fischer's Towers as "God's Art."

This is our last day visiting Moab, and we have packed in lots of hiking. But tomorrow we'll move down the road to more of God's wonders.