Ted and I spent today in Arches National Park–number four on our tour of Utah’s Mighty 5®. The park has over 2,000 arches (if the visitor center information is accurate), but nearly all of them must be insignificant or inaccessible, because only 19 are identified on the NPS map of the scenic road and trails in the park. Speaking of trails, there seem to be only two kinds of trails in Arches NP: easy trails that are a mile or less in length; or strenuous trails that are three miles or longer. A few trails are described as “primitive.” These trails are not necessarily difficult or long, but are marked only by rock cairns. Hikers are encouraged to look carefully, as the trails might be difficult to find in some places.
You can see the rocks lining the primitive trail in the center of the picture. This is the trailhead. I assume the number of rock markers decreased as the trail went on.
The only strenuous trail we considered would have taken us to Delicate Arch–the poster arch of Utah (it’s on the license plates). We would have trekked the three miles without shade (it was only in the upper 60s) and the 480-foot elevation increase, but then we found out there are ledges and were told, “If you can make the ledges, you can make it.” The word ledges convinced us to settle for the trail that let us view that arch from a distance. It would have been nice to be right up next to the poster child of the park like the people we could see over there, but we know our limits.
This is as close as we got to Delicate Arch, and it’s a zoom-in shot. The arch is 60 feet tall. You can see tiny people to the left and right of it.
Arches NP is different from the other places we’ve been visiting. It has the now-familiar-to-us eroded red rock formations, but they seem to jut up out of the ground at random, rather than filling a large space.
This is a close-knit group of individually jutting rocks. In most of the park, the rock formations are relatively widely scattered. The center formation includes Turret Arch. (Seek and ye shall find. You can see the purple mountains through it.)
This is a very large isolated rock fin. Isn’t it odd that so much land around it would erode and leave an obviously harder piece of rock like this to stand alone?
Here are some more isolated rock formations. Guess which one is named Balanced Rock.
North and South Window arches were pretty, and they were fun too. We climbed through each of the Windows to the other side.
This is the South Window.
The North Window has a pretty view through it.
When you look at the Windows together, they look like eyes with a big nose between them. All they need is a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and a mustache.
This good-looking couple keeps appearing in our pictures. As we were walking on the trail, an Asian lady going in the opposite direction apparently told her husband (in Asian-speak) to take our picture, because he stopped us and said he would take our picture.
Turret Arch was near the Windows and was an interesting arch.
Turret Arch looks like this from the trail. We climbed over the rocks to the other side of it. You can see other people climbing through too. Look for the pink T-shirt to find them.
This is what Turret Arch looks like on the other (sunny) side.
If you see Turret Arch in shadow, the rocks surrounding the opening seem to signal A-OK.
Sand Dune Arch was an easy walk–0.3 miles round trip. The trail was deep sand, so it was like walking on a beach. A lot of little kids were making sand angels and sand piles. Too bad there wasn’t any water available to make red sand castles.
This is the entrance to the Sand Dune Arch area. That’s Ted wriggling through it.
And here’s Sand Dune Arch rising over its sandy “beach.”
Our final arch of the day was Double Arch, the highest and third widest arch in the park.
The sign at the trailhead was a little confusing. Three openings in a double arch? Define “double,” please.
Double Arch lived up to the NPS description of “spectacular.” Ted and I chose it as our poster arch of the day.
Tomorrow: Number 5 of Utah’s Mighty 5®–Canyonlands National Park.