Today we are going to visit Arches National Park. There is reportedly over 2000 natural arches in this park, we will visit a couple of the more popular ones that are accessible by road. The majority of the arches require a trail hike to go and see them.
We are heading to the first of many stops we will make today.
Our first stop is an area known at The Courthouse. The rocks in this area are named.
This is the Three Gossips and the Sheep Rock.
This is the Tower of Babel and the Organ
Onwards to Petrified Dunes.
Balanced Rock is our next destination.
A different photo angle of Balanced Rock.
Delicate Arch is the most recognized and photographed feature in this park. The viewing area is about 1 mile from the arch. There is a trail that is a 1.5 mile hike and is rated “moderately strenuous” that will take you to the base of the arch. We need to be in better physical shape to attempt this hike, so we photographed the arch using the zoom on the camera from the viewing area.
Fiery Furnace is our next stop.
This is Skyline Arch.
And the Window Arch.
We decided that we should at least hike on a less strenuous trail to an arch, so we chose to hike to Double Arch. This arch was actually in the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The hike is about 1/4 mile and not too steep or strenuous.
We headed back towards the Park entrance, here are some random shots that we took along the way.
We arrived back at the visitor center and had our National Parks Passport book stamped and bought some souvenirs.
We returned to our hotel at about 2:30 pm. When we turned on our TV there were severe weather warnings and flash flood warnings for this area. We are glad that we are safely back at the hotel and not wandering around out in the open in the park.
It did rain quite hard for about 1/2 hour and there was thunder and lightning. I can’t imagine being out in the open in Arches National Park or the other National Parks in the area, with this storm blowing through.
To see all of the photos that we took today, you can see them all on my FLICKR site.
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