We are now in Moab. Last night, we finished the drive with enough time to buy food and relax a little bit in the spa.
After a little sleep in, the plan is to visit Arches National Park. It gets pretty busy and there aren’t shuttles to get about on, so if it’s full we’ll check out Canyon Lands instead and try Arches tomorrow.
There’s a short queue but there’s plenty of room in the park. First stop is at the top of the park: The Devil’s Garden.
The Arches National Park is a giant slab which is always in view from the town of Moab. Once we’ve driven to the top of the park, everything else is far below and out of mind.
The trail through the Devil’s Garden is only 7 or 8 miles total, but there are seven arches along the walk.
It’s cold outside and just about to rain as we’re getting our pack out of the van, so out we rug up with our rain jackets. Anna’s very fashionable in primary colour red and yellow.
The whole area sits on a giant salt bed from a dried up ancient inland sea. The salt liquified millions of years ago under the weight of all the layers of sandstone forming on top, which caused cracks all along the length of sandstone. Since then, wind and water has eroded those cracks into giant fins. Many of the fins have fully eroded, some remain intact, and others are so well balanced and strong have eroded into monoliths or arches. The whole park contains about two thousand natural arches, it’s the highest concentration of arches in the world.
The first two arches are extremely close: pine tree and tunnel arch. Here we get out first feeling about what the arches are like in person (pretty cool), but also what the fins are like.
Zion seemed like a park for adventurers (the views are spectacular, but a lot of the ‘must-dos’ are more about excitement). And Bryce was a combination of beautiful and quizzical with its stunning views and all its funny-shaped hoodoos (as was Goblin with its completely hilarious shapes!). Arches has maturity, weightiness, and poise; the fins are powerful, and arches are graceful. How amazingly different and wonderful these parks are!
It’s an easy walk to landscape arch, which is really impressive for its size and thin-ness. In 1991 a huge 180t block fell out while people were watching. Imagine that!
There’s a school group in front of us at this point, but that’s pretty helpful to show us the way from here…straight up a rock scramble. I would never have thought that would be the trail!
Up we scramble, carefully not thinking about how to get down if the rain continues. Up here are another two arches: Partition and Navajo
Partition is amazing as a window through to the view back down where we came from, and Navajo is doorway into a subway-station-like courtyard
The walk to the Double-O is the best experience, as we walk along a fin with a hefty drop either side and a wonderful view of rows of fins off to our right.
The Double-O arches are very impressive and we stop for lunch as we take them in.
The trail to the rest of the arches is marked ‘primitive’ and advises against walking when wet, the ground is slipper, so we head back the way we came.
A really special experience. Amazing!!
