Day 26 – Arches National Park Part 1

Megan’s Take

Today was our first day in Arches National Park. We had a timed entry permit for 8 am, but we arrived a half hour early thinking that permits were not needed before 8 am. That was not the case. (Permits required from 7 am – 4 pm.) We waited around until we could enter the park. That was our only snafu with logistics for Arches NP, which is notoriously very busy and crowded. We didn’t have any issues with parking or crowding within the park itself. I’m sure it helped that we were visiting on a weekday, but we continue to wonder when peak season is. It’s definitely not peak season here (or anywhere else we’ve been) yet.

Our big hike for the day was the Delicate Arch trail – 3 miles round trip and about 500+ feet elevation gain.

Both kids completed this on their own (while wearing hydration backpacks). They are rockstar hikers. It took some encouragement, but they were interested enough in the rocks and slickrock trail surfaces to keep going. I was very proud of them, and we had countless people comment on their hiking abilities. Some dude who looked like he loved outdoor adventures passed us on his way down as we were headed up a steep slickrock slope. Emmett was just trucking along steadily with his tiny backpack, and the guy smiled at him and said that he can only hope that someday he has a son who is such a good hiker. After the hike, we drove to a spot that required a 0.5 mile hike to an upper viewpoint. We put Emmett in the hiking carrier for a break, and he almost immediately fell asleep for a power nap.

The big hike had taken all he had to give this morning. Both kids have done so well with hiking that I can only wonder how I’ll get all their energy out when we return home.

This afternoon, we did the scenic byway 128 up along the Colorado River and then circled around to a spot for rock hunting.

We found more agates and had fun looking around.

It’s a no pressure, low pressure activity. Nowhere to hike to – no set destinations – just hang out.

Phil’s Take

While we did get to the park too early, it occurred to me that it might still be possible to get a pass for the 7-8 AM time slot, because they do release some the day of. It turns out that even at 7:50 AM, there were still some left for that time slot, which tells me that there isn’t nearly the demand the system is intended to handle.

The early morning views in Arches National Park are about as good as Capitol Reef National Park in that it’s hard to see things and there appears to be quite a bit of pollution early in the morning and lighting hits things at the wrong angle to see them well. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

For this reason, and because we were trying to make sure we could get parking at the Delicate Arch trailhead parking lot, we didn’t stop for pictures on the way in. We left that for the way out, so I’ll cover that later.

The kids both enjoyed the Delicate Arch hike this morning, and I think the major reason was because of all of the bare rock we were walking over.

After the recent budding photographer phase (the rocks pretending to be cameras from two days ago), Emmett tried his hand at director of photography for part of the hike up.

Right after this well orchestrated photo shoot was the narrowest and supposedly scary part of the hike. It’s the last approach to the arch viewing area.

Emilia and I didn’t seem to have a problem with it, but I hear there was a bit of anxiety from some people trying to pass this portion of the trail.

The Delicate Arch itself lives up to its iconic image, but I was struck by how much beauty there is around it. It always baffles me when there is something famous like that, everything around it gets ignored. I took many pictures in that area, obviously of the arch, but also trying to focus on capturing the entirety of the beauty of the area.

What struck me as the most awesome was the bowl beneath the arch, so perfectly formed that you could see the water flowing around it for countless millennia.

I think the way back down was easier for the kids. They were even friends for a while.

I didn’t grab many pictures on the way up, but I did catch one on the way down that shows the bulk of the path from the parking lot. This was taken at the top of the steepest part of the trail.

Once we got back down to the flat part at the bottom of the trail, Emilia and I went to see the petroglyphs

and we all checked out a preserved pioneer cabin near the parking lot.

After lunch and the short viewing of the arch from that I didn’t manage to get any pictures of because I was distracted by a sleeping Emmett, we headed to the Panorama Point. It gives a good view of the valley we accessed the Delicate Arch trail from and a good portion of the park.

Apparently that whole valley formed when a huge salt deposit, some thousands of feet thick, caused the whole thing to collapse as it dissolved. That explains some of the interesting rock folding we saw.

We then visited Balanced Rock, which is also an iconic view in the park.

Again, there are other views to be had from that location that it seems is always missing from people’s pictures.

On the way back to the visitor center, it was very apparent that the park was far from crowded. I only saw a few cars at pullouts, so I was able to stop at a lot of them and grab pictures. Some of that portion of the drive reminded me of Monument Valley, and you can see why.

There was also a reprisal of the petrified dunes we saw at Snow Canyon State Park.

All told, Arches National Park is beautiful. I will definitely not argue that point. There is a huge variety of sights to be seen here, but I do not understand why the park would have the demand it does. Megan and I discussed and feel like it has to be something to do with Moab and it being a destination. Capitol Reef National Park has just as much majesty, but is very clearly overlooked by the masses as compared to Arches National Park. If it were crowded at Arches, I would rather spend my time at Capitol Reef.

The scenic drive along the Colorado River from Moab is beautiful and I would highly recommend it. The cliffs were massive and the whole canyon felt huge. It’s several miles of this.

It then gets quite a bit wider and changes to a different rock formation layer.

Once the road departs from the river, you’re dropped into a barren wasteland that reminded us of Death Valley.

It ends at the Interstate 70, which we took to a BLM road that heads out into the middle of nowhere to do the rock hunting. This very remote area was an even bigger agate deposit than the one we found out east of Capitol Reef National Park. While Megan and the kids were sifting through the huge amount of agates in the dry creek bed there, I went exploring a good portion of the surrounding area. While there was all kinds of volcanic rock in the surrounding area, everywhere I walked was littered with agates.

As always, here’s the gallery of our pictures for the day.