UTAH
Arches National Park - Day 2
Today was our full day at Arches and we intended to do it ALL. Thankfully there are only three primary areas at Arches. Fiery Furnace however, is closed both for winter and for COVID.
The main event of Arches National Park is the Delicate Arch which appears on Utah license plates among many other things in the state. The hike to see it is about 3 miles round trip with some elevation. This is not very difficult in the traditional sense and is well worth doing.
My only caveat is that the desert is quite cold in February but also gets quite hot in the summer. You can see even with a pure blue sky and sunlight we were totally bundled up. It was really windy!
The rock formations are fantastic, and there’s a view of the valley beyond Delicate Arch. There is a Delicate Arch overlook which doesn’t require hiking.
One thing I thought was humorous was that the guidebook warns about clever ravens that will open your cooler and steal your food. There were two all the way up at the Arch waiting for tourists to spill their food. I tried to get a good shot of one flying overhead.
The way back down was incredibly easy compared to the walk up. There are some narrow parts at the top though so make sure to bring a mask and watch your step.
At the bottom there are two more things you can look at. There are petroglyphs on a nearby rock
There is also a small cabin from an early rancher. The informational signs indicated the entire family lived in that single family cabin and were able to grow crops from the stream. I can’t imagine living like that though!
After we had finished at Delicate Arch, we ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank water before heading over to Devils Garden, our final destination for hiking in Arches. There are a crapton of arches on this trail, so many that it might be hard to post every single picture in one blog post.
All told this trail clocks in at 7 ish miles which can be long and intense, weather depending. Additionally there is quite a bit of rock scrambling, as well as heights.
The only arch we missed was the Private Arch which can only be seen if you take the primitive trail back from Double O Arch. Based on what the signs and maps said, the primitive trail just didn’t sound that fun and we were starting to lose steam anyways. But feel free to write in to say if that trail is totally worth it for future reference!
The first two arches are Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch. These are right off the trail right at the beginning. Signage is clear and both of these are decently cool. Pine Tree Arch probably should’ve been named something else though.
Navajo Arch:
Pine Tree Arch:
Landscape Arch is next and it is fantastic! You get a really far view from it to see how wide and skinny it is. Parts of this arch have already fallen down, I believe in the 90’s. See this arch while you can! I took a bunch of hopefully better pictures on my DSLR but I’ll have to upload them when I get home.
At this point the trail is a little confusing. The trail will split into the rest of the normal trail and the primitive trail. To get to that split, you need to scramble up a rock fin. We weren’t sure if the rocky scramble was the start of the primitive trail or not but, it is part of the main trail yes. Once you get to the top of that the trail will diverge and signs will be clear.
Before the split we were able to climb up a big rock and were able to see nearly 360 degrees. We got some very cool shots up there with Courtney doing a handstand
Next are two separate but similiar length offshoots to see Navajo and Partition Arch. Go to both, they are both worth it for different reasons. Personally I liked Partition a little bit better because it was like a window. Navajo Arch was more like a cave with an arch opening.
Partition Arch:
Navajo Arch:
The next stop is Double O Arch, about another half mile. To get here you have to cross the fin I mentioned. There’s an incredible view of rock fins, the valley and everything else as you cross. It was a little unnerving if you look down but pretty wide and with good traction.
The actual double arch is pretty dang cool, and if you keep walking around it, you can get to the joining of the primitive trail as well as an offshoot to see the Dark Angel.
The Dark Angel is just a rock tower that is climbable but there’s not much else special about it. It’s about a half mile of an offshoot and in my opinion probably not worth doing. It takes you down from the rocks into the desert which loses some of the best parts of the views.
One cool thing is as you head back to the Double O arch, you can see it from another angle on the desert floor.
From there we turned back and headed back the way we came. Like I said we weren’t sold on the primitive trail and it added an additional mile on to the hike.
This meant we had hiked 10 miles today, total!! We got gas and a bottle of wine in town before heading back to the cabin to make dinner. We cut up sausage and broccoli and made some boxed mac n cheese with poblano. It was so good after a long day! We didn’t even get a chance to open the wine and both of us fell asleep at 8:30 PM.