Utah: Arches National Park

On Sunday we traveled to our next stop, Arches National Park, near the town of Moab. We camped outside of the park on the bank of the Colorado river. The first sites we saw along the river weren’t very inviting – newly planted trees and dry, dusty plots of ground. I was worried about wind and dust – there was nothing to break the wind and prevent it from blowing dust right into our tent, as had happened in Lassen. We kept driving, and found a different campground where there were low trees and bushes to provide a bit of shelter. Much nicer! We set up our tent and headed into the park for the day.

I never understand why natural wonders are named after the Devil. (Devil’s Lake, Devil’s Postpile, Devil’s Kitchen…) As far as I can tell, Utah is God’s sculpture garden. Arches is an especially wonderful area in this category, with fantastic skylines of intricate shapes and monumental valleys that remind you of ancient ruins. I absolutely loved it – I never got tired of looking at the red sandstone carved in bold facets with palette-knife gouges, or wind-smoothed with series of tiny (or huge) pebble-holes. I felt dwarfed by this enormous gallery, with no captions or glass cases to distract from the art.

After wandering around a bit, we hiked to Delicate Arch. This is the famous one, you’ve seen it on Utah license plates among other places. The classic photos are all brightly sunlight with the landscape in clear view beyond. But on this day, the wind was picking up as we hiked and rustling up a significant sandstorm!

Delicate Arch is HUGE. No wonder it’s an icon, since it’s unique among most of the other arches in that it’s free-standing and up on top of a rock-hill. The wind was so strong up there that it felt a little scary like the wind might blow you right off.

I’m glad I noticed the interesting formations and wall-garden elements on our hike up to the arch, because on our way down I had my hat pulled down over my face, with just a peephole to watch BN’s feet, and still sand was blowing into my eyes. Later we wondered if the kids we saw wearing goggles as we were hiking up were locals… they certainly had the right idea.

Things weren’t much better back at our campsite, though luckily our tent was still in place – we had staked it down firmly in a little hollow that got some shelter from low trees and bushes on the riverbank. We tentatively started to work on dinner, but as BN was unpacking the stove and gusts of sand blew across our site, we realized this was not a good night for outdoor cooking. Back to Moab we went, where we had lunched earlier in the day, to find some dinner. Happily we ended up at Baja Grill, where we enjoyed excellent Mexican food in the comfort of their space-heated semi-enclosed restaurant.

On Monday it was a bright, sunny day with lots of interesting clouds in a bright blue sky. In the morning we visited some easy-access features such as the Windows and Double Arch.

In the afternoon we took a hike out to the land of domes, with scenery that was reminiscent of Star Wars.

We saw Broken Arch and lots of other cool stuff. We spotted a rock with a face in an oblong “hood” that we dubbed “the Teletubby.” Freaky!

Tuesday we got up early and arrived at the Devil’s Garden trailhead just as the sun came up. After a quick breakfast of yogurt and granola in the parking lot, we set out for our best day yet.

It was really nice to get there so early before the crowds, and the trails were undisturbed and we saw lots of animal tracks in the orange sand. We saw a rabbit in the shrubbery, out for his morning hop. So cute.

Landscape Arch is another iconic one. I feel lucky to have seen it, it seems so fragile that chances are it will collapse in our lifetime? In the early 90’s a huge chunk fell out from that thinnest area…

I haven’t mentioned the plant life yet. Carpeting the land around these monumental rocks is a wonderful carpet of high-desert plants. Sagebrush, cactus, lichen, wind-twisted junipers and the occasional hardy wildflower. It’s all very neat and tidy, very different from the riotous weedy undergrowth we see blanketing Oregon. I think this trip was my first time seeing cactus in the wild!

We saw Partition Arch from across a ravine, and when we reached it we stopped for a snack. Good views from both directions…

We saw Indian Arch, which was like a cave and you could just imagine a small tribe camping in there. There was an amazing wall of intricately sculpted pale-pink rock, and I could see where people who design hand- and foot-holds for climbing gyms must get some of their ideas.

We visited Double-O Arch and hiked through a really neat area with huge “fin” formations that we thought looked like cruise ships.

Just before driving back to our camp site, tired but happy, we stopped at Park Avenue which I think should have been called the Nile Valley because it had a very Ancient Egyptian look. There were obelisks and perfectly flat vertical walls, with almost mural-like gouges and cracks. Almost doesn’t look real, does it?

Wow, Arches is awesome! I highly recommend it and I’d say 3 days is an absolute minimum to try to see the bulk of it. It’s nice that it’s so close to Moab, with good restaurants and tons of lodging, and also camping options inside and outside the park.