Arches National Park

The morning of the 1st started out a little rough. We were camping pretty close to the highway so it was a bit too loud too sleep. Even with as little sleep as we got it was still a really cool day. We stayed the night in the town of Moab, Utah about 1 mile South of Arches National Park. This would be an awesome place to go to for a vacation just by itself. There's whitewater rafting, atv tours, jeep tours, hiking, climbing, rappelling and all kinds of outdoor stuff to do. We of course didn't have the time (or money) to do that stuff this time around.

We got into Arches around 8 AM. Its just a single road in the park with some pull-offs to sight-see. We did a few short hikes including a 3 mile round trip hike to see Delicate arch, one of the most photographed spots in the world. It was a rough hike, up a steep rock face and up and down boulders but it was worth it. We got some great pictures. (Thats us standing in the middle).

We saw almost everything you can see at Arches without doing any day hikes and overnight camping. Heres another famous Arches feature. This is Balanced Rock, it looks different from all sides and its a very popular spot.

We kept running into the same tour of old folks with a militant environmentalist tour guide who was threatening to beat people up for stepping off the trail. All the while he's driving a 52' diesel tour bus thats smelling up the whole park.

Here is Pine Tree Arch, aptly named for the pine trees growing underneath.

These arches are called North and South Windows. Its a short hike but we took a primitive trail around the back so we could see them from all sides. They are deceivingly big. We didn't realize how big until we were standing underneath.

Heres Sarah Sitting under North Window.

We got a ton of pictures in Arches but too many to post. After Arches we had lunch at the Moab Diner and then onto Canyonlands.