Skip to main content

Arches National Park Day 2 & 3: More amazing arches

Another day and Elise and Samuels first chance to see Arches NP after a well needed rest day.  Eric was happy to go back for more.  First stop was the walk to the famous Delicate Arch, one of the most photographed natural sights in all of the USA.  But it's not just the arch that is photogenic.  The walk to the arch (a bit over a mile each way) provides some lovely panoramas.

The Arch itself is a super popular sight and it's very hard to get a photo without someone in the shot.  Eventually we did.  It's easy to see why this is one of the most famous of arches, it's not the biggest but its classical shape plus it's location at the top of a sharpish ridge really creates an impression.

There's quite a few nasty drops around Delicate Arch including a few rock slabs that start out in a gentle slope before getting steeper and steeper and eventually dropping off into near vertical cliffs.  A few brave people were happy to wander down the sloping rock to positions that looked uncomfortable (or downright scary) to us.  Speaking of uncomfortable, the last part of the walk in and out is along the coolest most awesome looking natural rock ledge.

At the end of the walk we visited some petroglyphs made by the local Native American tribe.

Followed by a short walk further down the road taking in vistas of Delicate Arch from the foot of the mountains.

Next stop was the area of the park known as The Windows.  The Windows features some of the more massive arches in the park and we took a few short walks here.  First to the North and South Windows and Turret Arch.  Things were quite busy in this part of the park including the family right out of National Lampoons American Vacation who proceeded to bog their car in the car park and then let the kids run amok all around the Turret while people were trying to take photos.
Elise on the trail to the Windows



Turret Arch

The Windows

Just across the way from the Windows, Double Arch is one of the more massive features in the park.

We'd seen a lot of arches so a trip to Balanced Rock gave Elise and Samuel some variety and a chance to see this crazy rock which Eric had visited the day before.  This was our last stop for the day.

The next morning we decided to make one last visit to the park on the way out of Moab.  This allowed Samuel to pick up his Junior Ranger Badge and add yet another NP to his growing list of Ranger Qualifications.  We also took a quick walk down Park Avenue to the Courthouse Towers to see these huge and inspiring rock walls.  The walk meandered down a dry river with lots of interestingly textured bare rock slabs which meant the interesting scenery wasn't just confined to the big cliffs and towers overhead.

And with that we said farewell to Arches and hit the road back to Colorado.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inca Trail day 4

This was the day we would arrive at Macchu Picchu so we awoke with a keen sense of anticipation.   To celebrate the last day on the trail, somehow the chef had whipped up an enormous cake which was served after breakfast.  After a discussion with Marco about the likely weather over the next two days we agreed that it would be best to tour Macchu Picchu as soon as we arrived in mid afternoon rather than wait until tomorrow. Marco assured us that this would mean less crowds and better weather (he was right). We could see the backside of the mountain above Macchu Picchu in front of us as we started out.  Unlike the last two days, today was mainly downhill.  We would have to descend about 1,000 meters and judging by the first part of the morning walk, most of this would be on steep and slippery rocky steps. After alternating descents and traversing along steep hillsides through cloud forest and bamboo groves we reached the ruins of Intipata. Intipata was a very...
2 comments
Read more

Dining in Denpasar

 A key part of any holiday experience is food.  During the first week of our stay in Bali we had two nice and very contrasting dining experiences. Merah Putih is billed as the best Indonesian restaurant in Denpasar. It was just a few blocks from our Seminyak villa so we prebooked well ahead of time for a visit. The restaurant venue is very impressive - from the inside it looks a bit like a giant greenhouse, including the plants. The food was spectacular.  While every dish was good, the Bak Pao Sapi (Beef steamed buns) and Semur Sapi (slow roasted beef cheek) were incredible.   Then for Christmas Eve lunch we had booked at Starfish Bloo at W Bali, one of the swankiest Sunday Brunch venues on the island.  Sunday brunch buffets are a signature Bali experience with many of the big international hotels putting on all you can eat extravaganzas once a week. Needless to say the meal was jaw dropping.  We had a great table close to the beach where we enjoyed un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Santa Cruz

Unlike our first island hop, Isabela to Santa Cruz was done by boat (see the addendum below for my thoughts about inter island boat travel).  At least the early morning trip was a smooth one.  Luckily we had managed to book an apartment in Puerto Ayora which meant we could do some of our own catering for a change.  By the time we arrived we were slowing down some, we felt we'd seen much of the wildlife the islands offered and frankly, we were exhausted. So we didn't venture too far from Puerto Ayora. One nice place near town we did visit (Eric went twice) was Tortuga bay which was exactly what you would expect a tropical beach to look like.  In fact it had two beaches, one a surf beach and one a quiet cove where you could snorkel with barely a ripple.  There wasn't much wildlife here except a few Iguanas (and one turtle) but the warm water was great for a swim nevertheless. As with San Cristobal we took a taxi trip to the highlands, crawling in Lava tub...
1 comment
Read more