Table of Content
Arches National Park | Introduction
Arches National Park (Arches National ParkArches National Park is probably Utah's most famous national park. 309 square kilometers of the world's largest and most diverse collection of natural stone arches and a spectacular landscape of red sandstone canyons, pillars, boulders and platforms. There are more than 2,000 naturally occurring stone arches within Arches National Park, the most famous of which, Delicate Arch, is considered a symbol of Utah. The reason there are so many arches is that they are located on top of salt formations that have been naturally eroded by the drying up of ancient oceans, and the topography of the arches attracts many visitors each year.
Arches National Park | Trip Planning
The entrance to Arches National Park is on the south side of the park. The park route is not complicated, it is mainly a major north-south road, the entrance is the lowest elevation of Arches National Park, after entering the park the elevation is all the way up, from the entrance all the way through the spectacular rock scenery Courthouse towers, The Great Wall area, and then there is a branch of the road to The Windows Section, the main road continues north to Fiery Furnace Area to the northernmost Devil's Garden. The main road continues north to the Fiery Furnace Area to the northernmost Devil's Garden, there are many scenic spots on the way, although it is not impossible to finish the tour in one day, because there are quite a lot of walking trails, if you have limited stamina and want to visit all the scenic spots, it is recommended that you arrange for at least one and a half days to two days.
2-Day Itinerary will be in the neighboring areasCanyonlands national parkArrangements are made together. Provide our two-day itinerary as a reference:
- Day 1: After entering through the entrance of Arches National Park, go to the Visitor Center near the entrance, then go straight to the Devil's Garden Area in the north end of the park, then go south to the Fiery Furnace Area and then out of the park to the lodging. You will pass by The Great Wall and Courthouse tower, so you can decide the length of your stay according to your time.
- Day 2: Half a day into Arches National Park to play The Windows Section, also will pass by The Great Wall and Courthouse tower, if there are still want to stop point can use this half day. On the other half day, we will go toCanyonlands national park.
If you are staying outside the garden, you will have to go back and forth twice, but we think this is a good arrangement because there are trails in The Windows Section, Devil's Garden Area and Delicate Arch, so it's less exhausting to do it in two days.
Arches National Park | Accommodations
Most travelers to Arches National Park choose to stay in Moab, a small town that is ideal for exploring Arches National Park and neighboringCanyonlands national parkIt is the ideal starting point for the Arches National Park, which is only about ten minutes away from the entrance to the park.
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The Moab Hotel is very popular, but during the peak season you may not be able to get a room, so you may also want to consider the slightly further town of Green river, which is about 45 minutes away from the entrance to Arches National Park via highway 191.
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Arches National Park | Attractions
Attractions | Courthouse Towers | The Great Wall
Entering the Arches National Park, you will be greeted by a strange rock wall with a cloudless blue sky, which makes you marvel at the wonders in front of you. Along the way, there are quite a few viewpoints worth stopping to take photos, such as Panorama point where you can see the whole Fiery furnace area from another angle, Petrified dunes viewpoint where you can see the sand dunes in the southeast, and Courthouse towers viewpoint which is a must-visit photo spot. If you can't get enough of it, you can also stop by La Sal Mountains Viewpoint and Park ave viewpoint not far from the entrance, where you can see all the major attractions of Courthouse towers area from another angle, plus the mountain peaks in the distance.
Attractions | Balanced Rock
Balanced rock is one of the landmarks in Arches, and visitors can take a short 0.3 mile walk. In the picture, you can clearly see a big boulder on top of the spire of the rock below, which looks a bit similar to the Queen's Head of the Wild Willow. The boulder is said to be the size of three buses and sits on a base nearly 17 meters high. Like the Queen's Head, it is expected to disappear one day due to wind erosion. In fact, there used to be a smaller similar rock called Chip off the old block next to the balanced rock, which was broken off by wind erosion before 1975.
Must-See Attractions | Courthouse Towers Viewpoint
Courthouse Towers Viewpoint is a great way to see Sheep rock, the gossips, the tower of babel, the organ, and the gossips, all of which look like three gossiping women.
Sheep rock looks like an ordinary rock wall now, but in the past there was a double arch.
Tower of babel is right next to the parking lot, it is one of the few narrow stone walls that can be viewed from a very close distance, and the walkway Park avenue around the parking lot can be used to circle around it, which is really huge when you look at it closely.
Attractions | Devil's Garden Area
Devils garden area is famous for its many arches. In Arches National Park, you have to climb up the mountain to see the arches. We came here in the middle of summer and the weather was very hot, so if you are coming here in the summer like us, you have to be well-prepared. If you are coming in summer like us, you should be well prepared. Each of us prepared a moisturized towel and a few bottles of mineral water to prevent dehydration and heat stroke.
Must-See Trails | Devil's Garden | Tunnel Arch | Pine Tree Arch | Landscape Arch
Devil's Garden Trail is definitely the most important must-see trail in the whole Arches National Park. Starting from Devil's Garden Trailhead, the first half to Landscape arch has a gentle slope and is a must-visit route for tourists, with a length of about 1.8 miles. there are a lot of arches along the way, and it's spectacular to take photos of any point along the way.
From the Trail head, follow the signs and you will find the famous Tunnel arch not far away.
Less than 0.25 miles apart and a little further on is Pine tree arch.
All the way to the Landscape arch, the trail was smooth and gentle. Although the weather was hot, I didn't feel too tired and was attracted by the scenery in front of me.
Landscape arch is the longest arch in Arches National Park, and when you look at the top of it, it's so small that it's almost hard to believe that such an arch was actually formed naturally. Of course, these arches are still being eroded by weathering. Visitors used to be able to pass underneath the Landscape arch, but since 1991, the arch has been observed to have fallen in three places and may break in the near future, so the park administration has closed the trail below for safety reasons.
The path further ahead became more difficult to walk, basically half of the trail after Landscape arch felt like rock climbing, and the slope was getting steeper and steeper when I looked down from the trail. Including the 1.8 miles that we have walked in front of us, the total length of the trail is 7.9 miles if we walk to the end in Devil's Garden.
We only climbed a little bit to Partition arch and Navajo arch, the higher we climbed, the windier the rocks were, the harder it was to walk steadily, but the scenery on the rocks was quite spectacular.
Trails | Skyline Arch | Sand Dune Arch | Broken Arch
To the south of Devil's garden trail, there are two other shorter trails, skyline arch and sand dune arch, which are less crowded. From Skyline arch trail, walk 0.4 mile to the end to reach skyline arch, Sand dune arch trail is connected with Broken Arch trail, there is a lot of sand on the trail, walk about 0.3 mile to Sand dune arch, along the trail continue to go down another 1 mile to another arch, Broken Arch. Walk about 0.3 miles to sand dune arch, along this trail continue to go down another 1 mile to another arch broken arch, near sand dune arch find a big rock to climb up and look out, you can see the broken arch.
Scenic Area | Fiery Furnace Area
The Fiery Furnace area is just south of Devil's garden, in the center of Arches National Park. Although the Chinese translation for Fiery furnace is "火熱熔炉", the temperature in this area is actually relatively low.
Viewpoint | Fiery Furnace Viewpoint
The first stop in the area from the north is the Fiery Furnace viewpoint, which features a whole stretch of stone walls standing next to each other like the fins of a towering fish, making it a spectacular sight to behold.
Sightseeing | Salt Valley Overlook
Another viewpoint of the Fiery Furnace area is called salt valley overlook, which is also formed by the erosion of the salt beds that were accumulated from the ancient oceans in the lower part of the salt valley, which are curved and eroded.
Attractions | Delicate Arch
The Delicate Arch is probably the most famous arch in Arches National Park and is often chosen as the landmark of the park. There are two ways to see the delicate arch, the easier way is to drive along the road to the eastern end and up and down the two viewpoints, you can see the delicate arch from two angles, the second way is if you want to see the arch closely, you have to hike from the trail beside the Wolf Ranch for about 3 miles. Considering the hot weather, we had to carry a lot of stuff on our backs to finish the walk, so we just gave up on the 3-mile walk and just took the easy viewpoint route.
The lower viewpoint from the delicate arch is very easy, only 100 yards of flat route, suitable for family trip. If you want to get a little closer, you can climb 0.5 miles up the hill to the upper viewpoint, although it's only 0.5 miles, we were exhausted by the time we got to the top in the hot summer!
Attractions | Wolfe Ranch
Wolfe ranch is different from the previous attractions because it has nothing to do with the arch, but is a historical site settled by Wolfe, a veteran in the 19th century, who lived here for more than 20 years with his son Fred, and the remains now include the cabin, the cellar, and the pasture corral where they lived in those days. It's not easy to live in this climate in near isolation for over 20 years.
The Windows Section
The Windows Section has many arches from different periods, and compared to the more famous arch area in the north, the arches here like the North window and the South window have not yet been eroded into a long and thin look, and still look very strong, probably because it looks more like a window, so this area is called the window section. The area is called window section.
The trail is divided into two sides, the Windows Trail on the east side is a loop around South window, north window, turret arch, 1 mile long, and the Double Arch trail on the west side is 0.6 mile long, so we hiked about 1.5 miles back and forth in the Window section. We hiked 1.5 miles round trip in the Window section.
The South Window and the adjacent North Window are younger arches. These younger arches were previously finned rocks, that is, wall-like stones, which were weaker in the middle and slowly eroded out the holes in the middle of the arch, and then became like the arches we have seen before, with a long thin top, which eventually broke off and left the pillars to continue weathering.
The Double arch on the other side is also a rare geological feature, being two interconnected arches.
Further reading
- More Utah posts
- More Grand Circle posts
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