Arches NP

Day 39    May 14, 2015



Climb to Delicate Arch

Today is to be our day at Arches National Park.  We started early but when we arrived at the park gates we had to join the line of vehicles entering the park.  Again, our first stop is the visitor’s center this allows us to find what the rangers think would be the best way for us to take in the park.  Since we knew we wanted to see as many arches as possible, we chose to go to “Delicate Arch” first.  This entailed a one mile and a half hike up from the floor of the park along a half mile climb up a “smooth” rock, that we did not want to be on if a storm came up.  By the way, the skies were threatening and we did encounter a few sprinkles coming down the trail.  The arch was quite pretty but being at the peak of a mountain, there was a lot of wind and this made for an uncomfortable condition. 

Delicate Arch

We were fortunate enough to climb up to the “Arch” with minimal competition, however, when we came back to the parking lot, there were 4 school buses loaded with 5^th graders.   As we watched the children start up, the rain moved in.  I had already told the teachers of the students that I felt for them.  Now that they were on one of the most precarious trails, I really was concerned for them.  From Delicate Arch we drove back to the “Devils Garden” to hike and see several other arches.  It was raining fairly hard when we got there, so Jan told me to go on and see what I wanted.  I told her that I should be back in an hour to an hour and a half and off I went into the rain. 

Tunnel Arch 

Just about a quarter mile down the trail I came to a intersection that led to two different arches.  The first one was Tunnel Arch and the second was Pine Arch.  Pine Arch was a pretty arch with pine trees on each side of it, the rain had let up a little as I explored this arch with camera in hand.  From there I had intention of going to Double O Arch.  Heading that way the rain picked up again causing me to rethink my final destination.  On the way was an arch that I had always heard of and had seen pictures of, “Landscape Arch”.  In 1991, the arch had segment of it to fall from it.  This caused the park to change the way the trail went.  This arch is thought to be the largest arch span in the world. 

Landscape Arch

Seeing this and then seeing the trail that went on to Double O arch, I decided that I wasn’t ready to climb up another slick rock in the rain.   Delicate Arch was the most spectacular arch that I had seen.  Heading back, I met Jan about a half mile down the trail.  I got with her and took her to the arches I had seen.  We had intermittent rain as we returned to the vehicle for lunch.  We had to eliminate most of our wet clothes for some others that we carried with us.  Continuing to rain off and on we decided to go to some of the places we had skipped to coming out.  Most of these were locations we could see from the road or overlooks.  We went to one location called the “Windows” that had several arches

Windows Section of Archs

viewable from the parking lot, very nice (but lots of rain).  There is a section called “Park Avenue” that is very spectacular that we also saw as we headed back.  We are so fortunate that since only a few days a year there is rain out here, we got to experience it.  Sadly for us this may continue for the next 3-5 days.

Looking toward the "Courthouse" and "Park Avenue"