The plan for our summer 2020 vacation was to spend a lot of time outdoors exploring three of America's greatest National Parks in California: Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite. All three of these places had been on my list for years; Yosemite for I don't know how long and Sequoia and Kings Canyon ever since I visited Redwood National Park in 2008 and found out I was thinking redwoods were actually sequoias. That day was pretty disappointing from a massive trees perspective, I can tell you that.
We never made it to California this year when we originally planned and we have no plans to do so in the near future. The virus messed us up. To keep our trip where we initially booked it (the week of June 22-26) would put us perilously close to the reopening date for some of the Parks and some of the parts of California we were traveling to and we didn't want to chance a park re-closing when it was flooded with more tourists than the State anticipated. Plus, wine-tasting (which we intended to do after the Parks) is not a good socially distanced activity.
Because we didn't want to move the date of a trip, we pivoted...and decided instead to spend a lot of time outdoors exploring three of America's greatest National Parks in Colorado and Utah: Arches, Canyonlands and Rocky Mountain. All three of those places had been on my list for years too, although maybe not so long as the three in California. But a shorter flight, a lot more remoteness and a lot more certainty about the Parks' open status sold us. Yosemite and the rest will have to wait. Again.
Each of the three Parks we visited this past June was memorable and definitely worth the trip, although circumstances conspired against us taking full advantage of one of the three. Each Park is getting its own post on this blog because we got something way different out of each one. I'm starting with the first of the three we visited: Arches National Park right outside of Moab, Utah.
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| Sunrise in the desert at Arches National Park. |
Every once in a while I want to go see someplace beautiful and amazing and I wanted that out of Arches. Nothing more than that. Laying eyes on towering stone figures carved by mother nature standing straight upright in the middle of a desert landscape in the American southwest. Exploring tunnels widened by wind and sand into the solid rock clear-span arches that give the park its name. Cliff after cliff of red-orange-amber-brown sandstone fashioned over centuries into something both amazing and breathtaking and straight out of the Road Runner cartoons at the same time. Maybe a walk or two along the way to get an up-close perspective on what I'd only previously seen in pictures.
We landed in Colorado on a Friday afternoon and got to southeastern Utah and to Moab by driving west from Denver on I-70 across some of the most gorgeous mountain and canyon scenery I've seen in just one five-or-so hour drive the very next day. I found the 12-1/2 mile long Glenwood Canyon, where the interstate splits into two separate elevations so both east and westbound sections can fit between the rocky walls of the canyon alongside the widening Colorado River, to be especially striking. I'd love to drive that again someday.
But when you cross the state line into Utah, the landscape gets...well...blander. A lot blander. Actually, pretty boring. It's all yellowish green grass on rolling hills as far as you can see. It's some of the most banal land I can remember driving through and it continues that way once you turn off the interstate and head south along US-191 towards the town of Moab. But eventually, about 10 miles or so north of the town, the scenery changes into enormous cliffs of red-orange-amber-brown rock. This is what we were waiting to see. This is why we came to Arches.
As a spot to explore Arches, Moab being a mere five miles south of the main entrance to the Park is perfect. We stayed in town for four of the eight nights on this trip last month and took advantage of the closeness to visit Arches on three separate days, including twice in a single day. There were a couple of reasons we did this other than the proximity: (1) we wanted to experience the park at different times of the day, including at sunrise, sunset and after dark; and (2) the temperatures the week we were in town were in the high 90s or maybe even cracking three digits by noon. And hiking out on the exposed, shade-less slickrock in Arches with the sun high in the sky in the middle of the day was not something we were interested in doing. Hence the multiple visits.
Before we got to Arches, I sort of saw the Park as an introductory drive which led you to three distinct and separate parts of the property: the Windows Section closest to the entrance (although not really that close at all); the Devils Garden deep into the Park featuring the largest arch in the place; and Delicate Arch, so famous and iconic that just that arch alone can stand on its own as equal to the other two spots that have many, many arches to see.
I think my preconceived notion of the Park's geography is both close enough to reality and way, way off base at the same time. As an organizing structure as a way to visit the Park multiple times in a bit more than half a week, it worked well enough to give us something to shoot for. But considering those three spots as the only ones worth focusing on completely sold the rest of the Park short. What I saw as an introductory drive on a park map to get to the good stuff was just plain wrong. The good stuff is all around in this place.
One of my favorite spots which we stopped at a couple of times for a good 20-30 minutes at a time was the Three Gossips, a carved grouping of three massive human-like figures in the Courthouse Towers part of the Park. Windows Section. Devils Garden. Delicate Arch. All cool. But so are the Gossips and a lot more of the other sights along the way. Drive slowly. It pays off. We all like different stuff.
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| The Three Gossips. |
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| Balanced Rock. Yeah, I know...not many actual arches so far in this post. |
So about that walk or two.
One of the biggest dilemmas we faced in Arches was Delicate Arch and what to do about seeing it. We were legitimately concerned about the heat in the desert and the Park brochures listed the hike to Delicate Arch in the "Difficult Trails" section. Difficult...heat...high elevation. Do we do it or do we not? Surely there must be ways to feel fulfilled in the Park without making that trek, yes? After all, there's a viewpoint to that particular arch so we could still say we saw it without actually walking there in person, right? In the heat. At elevation. Difficult. Right? We planned on skipping the hike, checking out the viewpoint and taking it from there.
We decided we'd go check out Delicate Arch on our first visit into the Park. This was our sunset visit. We'd heard Delicate Arch is amazing at sunset.
Among my misguided, preconceived notions of Arches (like there are pretty much three good areas in the place) was my impression that we probably had to drive into a valley to see all those amazing natural sculptures. You don't. Quite the opposite. One of the most remarkable features of this place to me was that the entirety of the Park is actually on something of a giant plinth. That red-orange-amber-brown rock is the top layer of sediment deposited in this spot about 170 or so million years ago. Driving into the Park involves driving up. So on our first visit, we drove up. Past the Gossips. Past Balanced Rock. To Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint. Just about in time for sunset.
We were underwhelmed. Significantly. It looked so small. And to be honest, not super picturesque. Validated our decision to skip the difficult hike. In the heat. At elevation.
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| Delicate Arch at around about sunset from Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint. What's the fuss? |
Two days later we'd make our second Arches visit to really explore, this time driving all the way to Devils Garden for a walk before making a stop at the Windows Section and taking an off-road adventure all the way out to Tower Arch and Marching Men. Lots to see on day two in Arches. And that's not even counting our second visit of the day to see the stars.
Any time we get to see hundreds and hundreds of stars in the night sky, it's a special day. We will never forget our night on top of Mauna Kea in Hawai'i in 2016 on a ranger-led night program spotting constellations and looking through a telescope at the moon close up. I guess living in the city makes the stars in the sky that much more special because we just cannot see them at home. There are a ton visible in Arches when the moon is new or close to it like it was just one day removed when we were there last month. If there's a skill in life I wish I had it would be the ability to identify constellations. I just can't figure those things out; they just don't make any sense to me. But that many stars, including some that were either shooting (or maybe actually moving satellites), is impressive. Quantity counts for me there.
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| Landscape Arch. |
Our morning walks on day two got us deeper into the Park, including a relatively level hike to Landscape Arch near Devils Garden followed by a detour on the way back to the car to see Tunnel Arch (not worth it) and Pine Tree Arch, which is the cover picture of this post and had the most amazing light coming through the arch highlighting the range of colors in the rock with the deep blue sky beyond.
Landscape Arch is the longest spanning arch in the Park, and likely the thinnest too. Its current state of lightness was caused by a massive chunk breaking loose in the 1990s. Eventually, it will collapse entirely, as will all of the arches in the area given enough time. I guess they'll be replaced with new carvings by that time. We turned back at Landscape Arch. It was impressive enough to be worth the time we put into our walk that morning and to keep going to Double O Arch would be taking us down a "Difficult" trail and we wanted no part of that. In case that wasn't obvious by now.
We compensated for our lack of adventurousness first thing in the morning with a very short hike along a paved trail to Double Arch in the Windows Section and a very long drive on an unpaved road (if you can call it that) to Klondike Bluffs in the very northwest part of the Park. Double Arch is worth the quick walk; it's an impressive piece of work by mother nature and there's some shade at the end where you can stand and admire the wind's handiwork. Klondike Bluffs is farther than it seems and there's a long and exposed hike over rough terrain to see anything interesting out there. The heat made us turn back after coming up empty there.
I couldn't help thinking that we might be missing out on Delicate Arch. It gnawed at me.
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| Double Arch. Windows Section. |
The plan for our last morning in Moab was to wake up when we woke up, grab some breakfast somewhere (heck, maybe even skip the free grab and go breakfast at the Best Western and spring for something heartier) and then head north with a couple of stops along the way. But Delicate Arch got the better of me. We had to give it a shot, right? There had to be more to this thing than the pretty boring picture we took from the Viewpoint I was thinking. Damn the "Difficult" rating. It couldn't be worse than hiking to Machu Picchu last May could it?
We found a description of the trail to Delicate Arch that broke the mile and a half each way hike and climb into three sections: a relatively flat first third over paved and gravel paths; a steep middle third involving walking and maybe a little hands and feet action over some of the Park's signature slickrock landscape; and a pretty flat final third before reaching the ultimate destination.
Slickrock. Sounds scary. Rock that's slick? Sloped? What if we fall? How far do we slide and fall and what's at the bottom of that trip? A hard landing I'm guessing.
Slickrock is everywhere in southeastern Utah but we saw more of it at Arches than anywhere else. People come from all over to mountain bike over this sort of terrain. It's rock that's been worn smooth but very definitely not flat by centuries upon centuries of erosion. It's challenging terrain to walk or ride over. It's rock but it's not rocky, if that makes sense.
The trail description we read was right about the first third of the walk. It was pretty easy. And relatively flat. Straight into the blazing early morning sun but relatively flat. The guide didn't say anything about the sun but believe me when I say "straight into the blazing early morning sun" means like it's directly ahead of you right where you need to look to walk. A big hot ball of gas blinding and cooking you every step of the way. There's no way to look where you are going and not stare right into the sun. It makes this "Difficult" trail significantly more difficult.
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| Looking back down over the slickrock. Don't believe me about the sun? Check out the length of our shadows. |
There is something incredibly satisfying about working hard to get somewhere beautiful. I believe if we hadn't done this walk, we wouldn't have left Arches with anywhere near the satisfaction level I have as I write this post today. This walk and this work made our Arches experience. It was hot and it was blinding and the last third of the walk was no less difficult for me than the middle third, but it was worth it.
The last mile or so of the walk to Delicate Arch was entirely over rock. One foot in front of the other again and again until you get to a maybe five or six foot wide ledge running for about 200 feet or so with a view out over the desert that represents the final push, not that you necessarily know that on the way up. Turn the corner and you are there. One of the most iconic sights in all of our National Parks.
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| The last approach to Delicate Arch. This is me on the way down. Sun too bright for a pic on the way up. |
It's sat on one end of a horseshoe type shaped rock that forms a kind of very steeply sloped natural amphitheater with all views pointed towards the star attraction which is Delicate Arch. This is a seriously steep piece of rock and walking around on the other leg of the horseshoe from the Arch is a delicate (pun intended) business. I walked carefully. No way did I want to slip or fall or roll or have to run downhill to regain my balance. That whole coefficient of friction between rock and Timbas I mentioned earlier? Not enough. I stepped deliberately.
It's also massive. I mean really, really huge. There are actually two people standing below the Arch in the picture below. They are like ants. This is a big, freestanding, rock sculpture made by the action of wind and sand on rock. It's just awesome, especially considering the view behind and through the Arch itself. There's a gorgeous rock wall forming the perfect backdrop to the view. Difficult? I guess. Heat? You bet! Elevation? Sure. Worth it? Definitely. So definitely worth the hour and 45 minutes we spent walking the three miles to Delicate Arch and back. This was debatably the best thing we did on this trip. There's such a sense of accomplishment. This morning walk on our fourth visit to the Park made it all worthwhile.
And downhill with the sun at our back was easy. Definitely worth the walk both ways.
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| Delicate Arch. The money shot. |
How We Did It
According to their website, Arches National Park is open 24 hours per day, seven days a week, 365 (or 366) days per year. And yes, I know that's redundant. That schedule is essentially true. But if the Park gets too full, which it seems to do routinely on weekends according to the official Arches Twitter feed, access is restricted until some people leave.
We solved this issue by avoiding Arches on weekends during the day and getting into the Park early on weekdays. We entered the Park before 6 a.m. some days and exited after 11 p.m. on the day we went stargazing. There were cars in front of us and behind us every day we visited no matter the time. This is a busy Park. I've always been a fan of getting somewhere early. That strategy served us well at Arches.
The Park's website also has a parking page, which shows how busy each of the three main parking areas at Devils Garden, Windows and Wolfe Ranch (Delicate Arch) is for the prior day. I found this page showing Devils Garden and Wolfe Ranch being busy to very busy by about 8 am. We didn't necessarily find this to be true for our one visit to Devils Garden; there were a ton of spots when we left this area at 8 am. But it was for sure true at Wolfe Ranch. We got one of the last available parking spots at about 7 am when we hiked to Delicate Arch. Early bird. Worm. That's all I have to say there.
Finally and if it wasn't obvious from the post above, I highly recommend a walk to Delicate Arch. This will be difficult for some. Use your judgement and take plenty of water. I can highly recommend the breakfast burritos at the Moab Diner as a reward if you do.
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