Fiery Furnace

Fiery Furnace is a very special place in Arches National Park.  We'd wanted to go there for some time, but the timing just never seemed to work out--we were either too busy climbing, or the weather was iffy.  Finally, in 2006, we had had half a day to go and check it out.

In order to enter the Fiery furnace, you either have to go on a guided hike with the park rangers, or apply for a permit and prove to them that you're not an idiot and that you know what cryptobiotic soil looks like.  Obviously, we prefer doing things on our own, so we applied for and received the proper papers to guide ourselves into the Furnace.

The permit process didn't offend us (it is certainly warranted considering the popularity and fragility of the place), but the attitude of the rangers giving the guided tours was a bit annoying.  They confronted us more than once about not tagging along with the tour (something we certainly weren't trying to do) and basically let it be known that they didn't much approve of our presence even though we had a permit.  Eventually we stopped bumping in to them and were able to enjoy the place in reasonable solitude.  We found many interesting arches and features along the way.  Unfortunately the place is hard to capture on film--below are a few shots that turned out alright.