Moab Part Two – Arches National Park

Beautiful yet fascinating is the way I would describe Arches National Park. I’ll let the pictures attempt to portray some of the beauty in this gem of a National Park located just a few miles from downtown Moab, Utah. It is the 2,000 arches and the incredible forces that created them make the rest of this story so fascinating.

As we told readers last week, we were advised to visit Arches National Park early in the day because the park is very popular and long lines of cars can form at the entrance later in the day. An early departure caused us to forgo our usual morning routine of lingering long over coffee and breakfast and drive Butch (truck) five miles to the entrance shortly after the gates opened. The lines had already formed but they were relatively short.

We waved our National Park Senior Pass at the Park Ranger and received a welcoming smile in return along with maps of the Park and the hiking trails. The Visitor Center was the first stop.  After a short wait, the doors to the theater opened and we watched a very informative documentary on the creation of the rock formations and the history of Arches National Park.

After viewing the film, Helen read through the trail maps and peppered the Rangers inside the Visitor Center with questions about what to see and where to hike. The day was cloudy and very light rain fell around us which factored into our agenda.  We decided to begin our hike at the Devil’s Garden Trailhead and hike to Landscape Arch, stopping to visit two other arches along the trail.

Despite the early start, visitors filled the trail. Approximately one-third of the way to Landscape Arch, we left the main trail and walked to two arches shown on our map.  Tunnel Arch, the first of the two, stood prominently on a hillside above the trail.  Tunnel Arch is actually two arches, one smaller than the other, sitting side-by-side. I joined other visitors and took a few pictures.

Pine Tree Arch (top of page), the other arch on this trail, is a massive rock structure and serves as a frame for some lovely scenery and the mountains beyond. Surprisingly, few people gathered around this arch and picture taking was somewhat easier. We waited for one couple to walk along and asked them to take a picture for us.

Fortunately, our visit to Arches coincided with the blooming of desert wildflowers and cactus.  Helen took quite a few pictures of the blooming plants and a few are shared here.  The purple grasses also added greatly to the incredible scenery we enjoyed.

Landscape Arch is the widest arch in the National Park at over three hundred feet wide. In 1991, a huge slab of the arch fell from the underside that measured 60 feet long, 11 feet wide, and four feet thick.  This incident adds to the history of these formations that began as sandstone deposited over three hundred million years ago and shaped by wind, water, ice and other forms of erosion over the millions of years since. All arches in the park will succumb to the forces of nature eventually and crumble to the ground while new ones begin to form. Landscape Arch is a genuine natural wonder.

Our hike continued beyond Landscape Arch to several viewing points within the park.  The signature formation in Arches is Delicate Arch, a trip that required 2 to 3 hours of hiking along a difficult trial and includes a climb up a steep rock slope. Although tempted, common sense prevailed and we decided to pass on this hike and walk to another viewpoint instead and use a telephoto lens to capture Delicate Arch. A picture below shows the rock climb at the beginning of the trail.

The hike to the Delicate Arch viewpoint allowed us to focus on the valleys and the unique terrain that makes this park so special.  The mesas, buttes, spires and balanced rocks within our view are very dramatic and seemingly endless in number. The colors found in the valley floors give details about the history and geology of each one. Iron (or a lack of it) is usually the element that determines the colors found here. Iron and iron oxide brings out the deep reds and a lack of oxygen is responsible for the greens and indicate an oxygen-poor environment such as an ancient sea bed.

The Delicate Arch viewpoint, located near the parking lot, had filled with visitors by the time we made it there, but there were plenty of vantage points available for picture-taking. Looking through the camera lens, I could see many hikers that had reached the arch and strolled through the opening in its base. I’m certain they all agreed that the reward at the end of the journey was more than worth the effort.

Both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks are exceptional and serve to reinforce my belief that our National Parks are the greatest gifts Americans ever gave to ourselves. We love every visit we’ve made to one and, when we leave here, we’re Easing Along to another one of those gifts…Mesa Verde National Park.  We hope you’ll join us there.