The early national park visitor gets quality time with their signature features. At few parks is that notion truer than Arches National Park. At 8 a.m. a line already queued at the pay station for Arches National Park. It was only 5 cars deep, but still.
Even in summer, I cruised through Moran station at Grand Teton in three cars or less. If you’ve seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’s opening scene, you’ve seen the arches, Balanced Rock and more. The filming takes places beneath Double Arch, a miraculous span in the Windows section of the park.
Once the ascension is complete, the Courthouse Towers loom large. Rock does not stand this way in most places I know. The towers are some serious slab of red rock.
As the rocks fall behind, the petrified dunes become a subtler dominant feature. I found them entrancing – the ancient dunes were covered over by other rock layers, turned from sand to stone, then reemerged as the layers wore away. Stone wears down to sand only to become stone again. It’s quite amazing if you think about it. Fortunately the petrified dunes are exactly that place.
For everyone who wants to see Delicate Arch (more on that later), the Windows Section offers a great variety of arches in a short of amount of walking/hiking space. The North Window, South Window, Turret Arch and Double Arch all stand in close proximity. If you want to feel immersed in the world’s largest collection of natural arches without a long hike, this is the place. Most of the visit was spent here, and rightly so. The two Windows offer exquisite views onto the desert mesas below. Turret Arch was worth the short climb into its confines.
As for Double Arch, don’t hesitate. You will hear children’s voices echoing beneath its span. You can get as close as you want and have your own space to explore. This is the arch you want to know if you only have a short time in the park.
Down the road, Devil’s Garden beckons from a nearby hilltop .That’s a future destination for Arches trips as the park’s signature arch called a little louder that Thanksgiving morning. It is hard to skip a look at Delicate Arch, even if you have no interest in hiking to Utah’s state quarter image.
Everyone wants to hike to Delicate Arch. The trailhead for the hike lies before the trailhead for the overlook, and people crowd into the trailhead. There were a lot of people heading out onto that hike with young children on exposed hike of several miles.
From the overlook, I could see Delicate Arch just fine. It stands on a hillside, requiring a steep hike upward, and it is hardly the isolated feature images would suggest.
Someday I might hike to the arch, but I wonder when – there will never be a time when you have it to yourself. Still, it felt better to survey the arch from afar and see what that hike might entail. It’s only seven hours from home, and the distance is within my hiking range.
As we descended the park road to the visitor center, dozens of cars sat waiting to enter in two lines. Lines of cars has entered as we prepared to exit. It was a stunning amount of people entering the small park at one time.
After leaving the visitor center, I noticed the line had evaporated. It had not disappeared due to cars moving faster through the entrance.
A ranger stood at the roundabout past the pay station waving drivers to make U-turns. The sandwich board next to him said, “Park FULL.” No one would be let in until more people exited. A steady column of cars headed into the high country of Arches, so it might be hours before the pay stations reopened.
Even on Thanksgiving, the treasures of Arches will dazzle to those who don’t delay their visit.
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