We start our morning with Scott’s alarm going off at 4:30. If you know me, you know mornings are not my favorite. I am a girl who LOVES her sleep. Scott bounces right up and can be awake, I need significantly more time to feel human in the mornings. Regardless, we are up and out of the campground by 5:30, heading to Arches National Park.

 

Our first stop is to hike at Delicate Arch. This is the most famous arch in Utah- it’s even on their license plates! We wanted to be at the arch at sunrise, but sleepy Lindsey couldn’t get moving! We got to the arch at nearly sunrise, but let me rewind a little.

The Delicate Arch trail is about a 3 mile roundtrip hike to get right up close and personal at the base of Delicate Arch. The hike started at Wolfe Ranch, complete with original building structures from the family that settled this area. The hike started out easy enough, but we could see in the distance the looming rock that we would have to scale. That was probably the hardest hike we’ve done in a while! It was one of those times where you keep walking even though your legs want to give out because you know if you stop, you won’t get started again! We finally reached the Delicate Arch shortly after sunrise. We sat for a little while and enjoyed the area- there is a huge bowl at the base of the arch, and the scenery is just amazing! When we got up to leave, I almost lost my hat! Turns out, Arches is just as windy as Canyonlands (plus, the area we are in is in a “Red Flag warning” which means that the combination of heat, wind, and low humidity is perfect for a fire to start). I really thought my hat had blown away, but turns out it fell just on a rock near us and I was able to retrieve it! This wouldn’t be the first time I almost lost my hat during our time in the desert 🙂

 

After Delicate Arch, we continued to the end of the road in Arches. The trail we were taking was a 7.2 mile roundtrip hike that you could see tons of different arches. We weren’t sure how much of the loop we would do, so we just started hiking! There are several different spurs that lead you to the different arches off the main trail. We started by seeing Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch.

 

We then continued on to Landscape Arch. This arch is INSANE. It’s huge, and the scenery around it is breathtaking! Back in 1991, a huge chunk of the arch fell (we’re talking a 60 foot long, 8 foot wide, 4.5 foot thick hunk of rock!), and you can still see the remains at the base today. You are no longer allowed to hike under the arch, but you can still see it’s expanse! It’s one of the longest arches in the world at 306 feet long!

 

After Landscape Arch, we continued down the trail. The trail past Landscape Arch is not paved, so hikers beware! We had to scramble up this insanely steep rock, very reminiscent of our morning hike at Delicate Arch. After scaling this rock, we took a couple easy spurs to see Partition Arch and Navajo Arch. Scott’s favorite arch turned out to be the Navajo Arch because the area around it is really cool! There is a little cave kind of area that you could imagine people living in years and years ago!

 

The trail continues on the Double O Arch. In order to get to this arch, we had to scale yet another large rock. This one was a little more nerve wracking for Scott, as it had steep drop offs on the sides and the wind was going like crazy! The views were AWESOME though! Just after this rock, we descended to Double O Arch. Just like the name states, it looks like two O’s!

 

The end of the trail leads to Dark Angel, a mammoth rock that towers over everything around it. We were told by some hikers that you just got to see a closer version of it, but we still made the hike in. We found some shade and I took off my shoes and socks to let my feet breath a little. I had the beginnings of some blisters, so I wanted to nip those in the bud while I could!

 

We hiked back to the truck on the main trail we had just taken. Our end mileage for this trail was about 6 miles. If we had taken the primitive loop back, we would have done the 7.2 mile full hike and seen another arch, but at this point we were starving and starting to feel the early wake up call!

We get back to the truck, and start heading out of the park. We stopped at Skyline Arch, a quick and easy half mile down and back trail to see this arch.

 

We headed back to the camper to shower and rest some. Scott found solitaire on his computer so he played that while I took a nap! We ate dinner, then popped in a movie on our dvd player. We forced ourselves to stay awake, and at midnight, we went back to Arches to watch the stars! Arches is a dark sky park, so you could see TONS of stars! It was sort of creepy too. The wind was wicked and made it a little more scary. I discovered that neither of our phones has good night sky picture mode, so just believe me when I say we saw millions of stars! We even saw the Milky Way and Jupiter!

Tomorrow, we venture to the more remote, but still accessible, section of Canyonlands National Park- the Needles section!