National Parks: Arches

Our next park was not a surprise, it was a main attraction! Arches National Park is the reason we went to Moab, Utah in the first place. I am a sucker for red rocks and Arches did not disappoint. However, it wasn’t as red as I had been led to believe!

The area (at least in late spring) is still very green all around the sandstone – but since people go to see the arches (obviously), that’s what they tend to photograph as well.

Arches is a popular national park (understatement), so from April 1-October 31 timed reservations are required to enter the park between 7am-4pm. Tickets go on sale on the first of each month for the following three months. We bought ours early because they absolutely sell out.

That said, there’s an easy work around and we accidentally used it! If you arrive at the park before it opens (7am), then there’s no one checking tickets. So even though we had our reservation, we ended up in the park before we needed it. We did this to beat the heat and the crowds because our first hike for the day was to Delicate Arch. To match the music to the mood, we listened to Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours as the sun rose during our drive into the park.

Remember what I said about the green? This was the view at the start of our hike to Delicate Arch.

Delicate Arch was our longest hike of the day, as well as one of the park’s most popular, which is why we decided to start with it. We arrived just after sunrise and passed a number of more serious hikers returning from watching the sun rise at Delicate Arch. While I love to have a place to myself, I’m not about to hike in the dark to get to it!

We used a downloaded map from AllTrails to make sure we were on track. The path is marked fairly well, but there are a few spots that are unclear. If you go later in the day, you’d have no problem following the crowds, but even though we’d missed the sunrise, there were still only a few people on the trail with us.

This 3.2 mile hike (round trip) was more than worth it, for views of this famous arch:

We stuck around longer than intended so I could take this shot. There was a family that decided to have a (rather dangerous) photo shoot underneath the arch and the rest of us just sort of waited around to avoid having them in our photos. I know Chandler hates when I wait (he says it’s unrealistic to have photos without people in them), but I think it was worth it : )

I can imagine it gets harder and harder to get this shot later in the day. As we hiked back, I’d estimate that the hikers had quadrupled and it was still early morning.

Next up was our second longest hike – are you sensing the pattern? We weren’t quite in a heat dome (those would come later this summer!), but the temps would be soaring by early afternoon, so we wanted to make sure anything of distance was completed early.

We started our 1.9 mile hike (round trip) on Devils Garden Trail to Landscape Arch. This path was 100% easy to follow and once again included more greenery than anticipated!

As we neared the arch, I even made a friend! Chandler makes fun of me for photographing animals that I grew up seeing, but I can’t help it – chipmunks are adorable. Unfortunately, these little guys know it – I’m sure they’ve conned many a tourist into handing over some food because there was no fear in this one.

In almost no time at all, we made it to Landscape Arch. At first it was unclear how much of the arch you can actually see – in the initial view, the angle doesn’t leave any space for sky between the arch and the rocks behind, but if you follow the path to its completion, you’re rewarded with the following view.

Also, fun fact: Landscape Arch is the longest arch in North America (306 feet).

Now, this isn’t the end of Devils Garden Trail. You can continue on to Double O Arch, but there would have been no convincing Chandler of that! While the hike to Landscape Arch is easy, Double O Arch involves narrow ledges with steep drop-offs. Hikers have to use their hands and feet to scramble and climb. And at 4.1 miles (round trip), there wouldn’t have been time to fit it into our schedule anyway!

I was more than happy to turn back at Landscape Arch and continue with the rest of our planned stops.

Next up was a collection of arches. From where we parked, we were able to walk to four of them. This shouldn’t be too surprising, I suppose, since the park has over 2,000 natural stone arches – it makes sense that some of them would be clustered.

First up was one I hadn’t planned on, but we saw so many people climbing it that I felt compelled to do that same. I took some photos when I was up close, but I think the magic of Turret Arch is better viewed from a distance.

That same hike also takes you to both the North & South (pictured below) Window Arch. Unless you’re here at dawn, I guarantee you can’t take a people-free photo, so I didn’t make Chandler stick around to try! But I actually like having the people in this photo – I think it gives the arch some perspective.

All of the arches we visited are quite large, but there are small arches throughout the park as well!

Our final arch for the day involved walking down and across the road (you can also drive to the nearby parking lot, but we weren’t convinced there would be parking spaces since it was much later in the morning by this point!).

It was definitely getting warm out, but it hadn’t settled into the heat the afternoon would bring, so I enjoyed photographing the landscape between the arches. That said, if you do use the parking lot, Double Arches is probably the most accessible arch in the park (or at least the most accessible of the ones we went to).

Double Arches was like a jungle gym and there were people everywhere. That said, I completely understand it. The arch provides a much needed reprieve from the sun. Plenty of people had settled in for a snack or an early lunch and you could hear the voices echoing around.

While I didn’t climb to the top (this is the tallest arch in the park!), I did go up a little ways for a break myself. Double Arch is probably the best arch to simply chill at if you’re looking for a break from the hikes or heat. Plus the rocks provide plenty of seat options!

While Double Arch was our final arch for the day, it wasn’t our final stop. That was reserved for Park Avenue Viewpoint. It was the first thing we drove past when we entered the park, but I knew I wanted to see it later in the day so it wouldn’t be completely covered in shadows.

I think we arrived around 11am, which worked out well. You can hike down into corridor, but personally, I believe the best vantage is from the viewpoint itself – guess that’s why they built it there!

Arches was our sixth national park of the summer and definitely a favorite – it was ranking right up there with White Sands National Park. By the end of the summer I wonder if I’ll be able to rank my favorite parks or if that will be an impossible task. Either way, I’m having a great time!