After we finished touring the Colorado National Monument in the rain, we head west toward Moab and Arches National Park. We would arrive late in the afternoon so we new there would be no chance at camping inside Arches, so we planned to stay overnight at the Moab KOA. On the way to Moab we took a (slow) route that followed the path of the Colorado River — this turned out to be very scenic as we got close to Moab.

We arrived at the KOA and set up camp. The trick to camping inside Arches at the single campsite available (Devil’s Garden) is to get there early, so the we planned to stay at the KOA only to get up very early the next morning and head right away to Devil’s Garden. We got to Devil’s garden in plenty of time and found a very good campsite — it pays to be early so you get a choice. We set up camp and started hiking around the area. On our first day, we hiked around the campground to see the ‘local’ arches.

The next day we made the big hike to see the “Delicate Arch”. Most folks view this arch from a great distance — in fact you can see the cliff edge for the “standard” overlook at the bottom right of this picture. If you are ready for a good 2km hike with about 500m climb up steep slickrock you can get a much better view. The weather was overcast and raining so the contrast with the sky is poor, but it is still a good view. By the way, slickrock when it is wet really lives up to its name. In the afternoon, with the weather clearing nicely, we headed north of the campground on the “Landscape Arch Trail”. We got to the “Landscape Arch” shown below just as the sun was low in the sky behind it. I had to take a photo from an oblique angle (still pretty nice).

On our last day, we set out in the car to see more of the park and to visit the nearby Canyonlands National Park. There are many things to see by car in Arches. One of the most notable is the “Double Arch” in the ‘Windows’ area of the park . Of course, this area is chock full of day-tripping tourists — the worst! Just at the bottom of the picture of the double arch below you can see a person sitting in the arch. While this does help to give a little scale to the size of the arch it also shows how ignorant your average ‘tourist’ can be. Apparently they can’t read either, because there are signs all over the place explaining that while you might enjoy sitting in a arch, you will be acting most selfishly for the other folks who would like to take a picture of the arch — not some rude slob sitting in it. I actually asked several folks to get out of several arches so I could take pictures and most were quick to realize their error and light out. However, the turkeys here were not so obliging — too bad there wasn’t a park ranger handy.

This photo shows one of the spectacular views we saw. This is very 'red-rock' country as you can see -- Note the La Sal mountains as a backdrop.This panorama shows the view east from our campsite -- again, you can see the La Sal mountains on the horizon at the right.This photo shows the sun coming up over the eastern horizon as we broke camp at the KOA.The first arch we saw near the campground was 'broken arch'.This photo looks back towards Devil's Garden from the trail to 'sand dune arch'. The campsite is beyond the row of fins shown here and many of the sites are nestled right between and among huge rock fins. It is these fins, of course, that eventually give rise to arches as they continue to erode.Right close to the camp amphitheatre is the 'Skyline Arch' shown below just as the sun is going down. The view is west into the sun, so the contrast with the sky is poor.As the sun continued to set we were treated to a nice colour show in the sky. The photo below is looking north from the campground -- you can see several fins along the horizon and if you look closely in the bottom right you can see the outline of a solar energy collector for the local bog -- lots of sun for generating electricity in Arches.The Delicate Arch from the top of the 'slick rock' trail/climb.This is the 'Tunnel Arch'. If you look closely just to the left of the obvious tunnel arch you will see another arch. This is a 'pothole' arch which is created by a slightly different process -- namely water directly eroding a path out of a pothole in the surface of the rock above.A shot from further up the trail looking back toward the Landscape Arch. You can see the how thin and long this arch is and you can also see where some of the arch has (geologically) recently broken away to make it so thin.The sun was going down we were treated to a great colour show on the lands east of us. The photo below is a view eastward as we returned to our campground.The Double Arch (with morons)The Double Arch (sans morons)

 

Colorado National Monument 2001
Canyonlands National Park - Islands in the Sky 2001