Arches National Park - Moab Utah

We have been looking forward to visiting Arches and Canyonlands National Parks ever since we studied up on them back when we did our first RV trip to Utah over two years ago. At that time, we only had time to visit Zion and Bryce National Parks in Southern Utah so we had been anxious to return to this part of the country when we had enough time to see more of these beautiful parks in Southern Utah.

As we approached the little town of Moab, which was just beyond the entrance to Arches National Park, we were overwhelmed by the beauty of the red sandstone cliffs on both sides of the highway as we descended into Moab Valley. We were delighted to find that our campground was situated in the heart of the valley and that we could see the red sandstone cliffs both in front and behind us from our campsite. Our back window looked across a whildlife preserve that was situated between our campsite and the red sandstone cliff just beyond. It was beautiful to watch the color of the sandstone change with the rising and setting sun over the next several days.

Arches National Park was all we had hoped it would be. Beautiful red sandstone formations of all different sizes and shapes were everywhere. The highpoint, of course, were the numerous arches scattered all around the park. But there were also other colorful rock formations, including “Balanced Rock”, a house-sized boulder supported by a narrow, constantly eroding column. There were also petrified sand dunes which added wonderful rounded contours to the landscape.

One of the most pleasant hikes we took the first day in Arches NP was a primitive loop trail that went behind the two adjacent arches referred to as “the windows.” As the guidebook noted, the two separate windows really did begin to look like a pair of spectacles when viewed from the reverse slop on the primitive trail. It was also so much more enjoyable with the quiet and solitude as there were very few other hikers on the primitive loop trail.

The highlight of our second day visiting Arches NP was our hike up the hill to “Delicate Arch”. This was a medium to strenuous hike 1 ½ miles uphill crossing large patches of slick rock, capped by traversing a narrow ledge carved out of the side of a large stone wall. Jo had been nervous about the prospect of going along a 3 foot wide ledge with a precipitous drop off, but she handled it just fine. We were quite pleased to see that we aren’t too old to undertake a hike like this. LOL!!!!!! And our effort was rewarded by the beauty of Delicate Arch and its lovely setting on top of the hill. Even after we were up there, we had to exercise care in moving about as the area around the Arch sloped down very steeply into what could almost have been a natural amphitheater.

That afternoon, our friends Rick and Ann joined us for a hike to “Landscape Arch” at the far end of paved road in Arches NP. Landscape Arch is the longest Arch in the park which was described as being as long as a football field, but we couldn’t be sure as we didn’t bring a one-hundred yard tape measure along LOL!!!!). While the Arch was quite pretty, we were prevented from getting very close to it because of the fear by the park service of falling rock – some time back, a large portion of the underside of the arch broke off and fell while tourists were in the vicinity, the park service is apparently fearful that more of the arch could fall and cause injuries or death to park visitors. The enjoyment of a hike to Landscape Arch was diminished somewhat by the large number of people taking the hike. While the crowds were undoubtedly smaller than they would have been had we come to the park before Labor Day, they were still larger than we had come to expect from our earlier hikes in the park.

Words can’t really describe how beautiful it was in Arches National Park but we hope some of these pictures will help convey the beauty found here.