Day 8: Arches National Park

The Millers at Arches 

The rock formations are amazing to see.

Tons of arches and balanced rocks.

To go in this area, you need a hiking permit -- I'm guessing it's in case you get lost.  The rangers will know where to look for you!

The famous Balanced Rock

Moab is the gateway to two National Parks -- Arches and Canyonlands. We only had time to see one of them so we headed into Arches in the morning. Arches is truly a beautiful park, filled with natural wonders, however . . . It is also FILLED with people. The first stops we made were cram-packed with people, including several busloads of tourists from Asia. We hiked en-mass to see the North and South Windows. They were beautiful and amazing but it was so crowded. After spending the day at the quiet, peaceful Capitol Reef, we had a hard time adjusting to so many people.

The North Window

Gage wanted some alone time at the Windows.

As you can see, that's difficult to manage here.  Inadvertent photobomb!

Greg and Ruth climbed up high to see what they could see.  So did a lot of other people.

Ruth will always find a high spot -- makes my heart beat faster.

Just to give you a little perspective!

 Thankfully, the deeper we went into the park, the fewer crowds there were. The weather was very hot (100F) and the two short hikes we did were really enough for us. The first one was to see the Windows and the second was straight uphill to see Delicate Arch. We had hoped to hike out to Landscape Arch but just didn't have the energy for it in the heat.

Love seeing the layers of rock.

Another arch with people.

Skyline Arch

So, we decided to take a dirt road to a 4x4 road -- just to get out and get the car dusty. The dirt road was very washboard and not a lot of fun to drive on -- although, the scenery was lovely and we had it pretty much to ourselves. The 4x4 road was really nice -- no washboard and just some soft sand that was no problem at all -- until we got to a small ridge. The road got incrediably rough and we decided it was too much for my Suzuki -- it’s a tough little car and has done some amazing roads but being stranded 5 miles down a dirt road in 100F heat didn’t seem like a good plan . . . So, back down the washboard road we headed.

Here was some of the soft sand on the 4x4 road.

It's a little bit hard to tell but that road goes straight up and there are big holes around the rocks in the road.

The Dark Angel tower . . . Gage dubbed it The Evil Red Wizard's Tower!

Beautiful, stark country

Washboard road, looking toward the La Sal mountains (all over 12,000 ft)

We washed my car on the way back to the campsite and made plans to wash the FMC on our way out of town in the morning.