Arches NP Part 1

Friday, July 11

After a stop in Moab for lunch, we made the short (5 mile?) drive to the entrance to Arches National Park.  Since we knew so little about the park, we thought we would do some driving around to get the lay of the land so to speak.

There is one main road that is 18 miles long.  There are also various other sections of the park that are off of that road.

Although there were lots of people in the park, it never seemed really crowded.  We only had problems in one location finding a parking place, the Windows Section near Double Arch.  Even then it only took an extra loop through the lot until something became available.  I recently saw that Arches now has more than a million visitors per year.  Fortunately July is probably not the busiest time.  That is apparently in the spring.

Although we did a lot of gawking along the road, our first major stop was Balanced Rock.  This was a good place to start for multiple reasons.  It is one of the signature pieces in the park and is only a very short, easy hike.  From my research ahead of time, I think it was the site of Edward Abbey's trailer when he was here in the 1950's and wrote Desert Solitaire, but there was no indication of that on the signage.

Beginning of the 0.3 mile trail around Balanced Rock

Balanced Rock is bigger than it looks--note the kids in the cave beyond the guy in the white shirt

Parade of Elephants as seen from Balanced Rock, with the La Sal Mountains in the background

Next stop was Double Arch.  This is one of several features in the Windows Section.  Double Arch is impressive even at the parking lot, 0.25 miles away, but it is really big once you get close.  The larger opening has a span of 148 feet and a height of 104 feet.

From the beginning of the trail

The Turkey does some gawking while taking a break on the climb up to the base of Double Arch. 

Double Arch

I don't know the dimensions, but even the smaller span is huge

Next stop was to the lower viewing area for Delicate Arch.  There are over 2000 arches in the park, but Delicate Arch is THE signature arch for the park and for all of Utah.  We were concerned about the elevation gain over slick rock on the 3 mile trail to the base of Delicate Arch (not to mention the heat), so we decided rather than hike to the arch we would view it from the lower viewpoint. The lower viewpoint is about a mile from the arch, but it is only a 100 yard walk from the parking lot.

Delicate Arch from the lower viewpoint

Zooming in a bit on Delicate Arch

One of the areas which I had not understood very well before we arrived was Fiery Furnace.  Contrary to the name it is not particularly hot.  The name merely refers to the red color. In fact, it is shady among the fins and is probably cooler there on a hot and sunny afternoon.  We did not go down into the Fiery Furnace, since that requires an advanced reservation for the ranger-led tour. However, we did walk down to the viewpoint.

Fiery Furnace

The fiery red color is due to iron, but only as iron +3.  It is also iron that produces green rocks when it is in a +2 state.

A little chemistry

One of the most surprising things about Arches National Park was its size.  It is much larger than I had expected.  I think that is because I had been looking at maps of both Arches and Canyonlands.  Arches is small compared to Canyonlands, but in no way is it a small place.

From the Fiery Furnace Viewpoint -- looking across Salt Valley.  The La Sal Mountains are in the far distance.  I think the red cliffs in the distance (beyond the brown ones) are part of the Colorado River gorge.

One of the most interesting arches we visited was Sand Dune Arch, which was back in the fins.  Much of the rock between the fins and some of the fins themselves have disintegrated into sand.  As with most of the arches, it is the deterioration of the center part of the fin that produces an arch.

Walking back in between the fins

Back in the fins on the way to Sand Dune Arch

Sand Dune Arch

Top of Sand Dune Arch

Although there was still more to see, it was getting late and we were getting tired.  We retraced our path back out of the park.  Before leaving we stopped at the Park Avenue viewpoint, one of the places we had skipped over on our way in. The light of late afternoon made this area look especially good. 

Courthouse Towers on the left and Park Avenue on the right

We made the quick trip back to Moab and got checked into the motel.  We had dinner at the very eclectic Moab Brewery and got to sample some of their beers.  It was a great ending to a great day.