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| Ayden and his delicate broken arm at Delicate Arch |
View Point - In route to Arches
From Cleveland, Utah, we jumped back on I-70 heading east towards Colorado. Before the Moab turnoff, we pulled off to take in the morning brilliance at a random viewpoint.
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| Good Morning Mr. Bunny! |
Delicate Arch Trail
3.72 Miles +/-542 Feet
July 10, 2017
From Crescent Junction on I-70, head south on the 191 towards Moab. Arches National Park is less than a 30 minute drive. The park itself is quite small. You could drive around all of it in under a couple of hours. Of course, there are some valid reasons to get out of the car to walk around, so lets take a hike...
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| Well actually, still driving here... |
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| A Balanced Rock Trail - we passed on this one |
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| Delicate Arch Trailhead, here we go |
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| Our first stop along the trail, nobody was home |
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| Pretty easy trail |
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| A little bit of bouldering - perhaps this pic is an exaggeration |
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| Cairns marking the way - oh and a Trail sign too |
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| Pic your adventure |
It had only been a week since Ayden broke his arm. The slope to the arch is more terrifying than this pic looks. I told him not to go up there, but he did anyway.
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| So Fresh |
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| Delicate Arch |
It's so worth it. As always, if you haven't hiked in a while and you are expecting your destination to be only a mile away, that mile certainly seems longer than advertised! Especially because this mile added an extra 3/4's. Don't let the short distance and sketchy turn sway you off course. Have faith, the trail is safe and easy and the reward is absolute. For anyone vacationing through, comparing Arches to the many other awesome National Parks in Utah, Arches is the simplest in all forms. Easy to get to, condensed space, easy trail systems and amazing views.
Personally, I love Bryce Canyon more, and I would keep Zion on top but way to over populated with tourists and a pain in the ass to get to. You are forced into a bus system there, which takes away from my joy. With Arches however, perhaps you want to arrive early to beat the traffic that may be. We were absolutely fine with it. Even with a 30-foot RV, not a problem parking for our hikes. There were sections of the road under construction, but still, no problem for us...
You'll notice near the start of the trail there is a small fork. You would be very unwise to take this either at the beginning or end. It adds only about 20 steps to your entire walkabout. You are awarded with the history of life in this area. I think many of us Americans take all this for granted. We are distracted by music and technology. Myself included, glued to the phone and social media. Heck, look what I am doing right now?! However, I go out there and Experience this. We all need to do it more, just saying...
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| Indian Pictographs |
Devils Garden Trail
2.93 Miles +/-266 Feet
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| Devils Garden Trailhead |
One more hike please, okay :)
Actually, Ayden was not excited to do another, but I insisted. Devils Garden is at the rear of the park. There were options here to explore for hours longer, but we hiked until it made sense...
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| Random Pic of Me! |
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| Landscape Arch - I believe |
There are so many more Arches back here in the Garden, but we turned around here. The trail actually got a little whack, so it Just Made Sense, to turn back. If we wanted to make a day of it and if Ayden didn't have a broken arm, we would have carried on. But the trail was a bit muddy and began it's uphill ascent, so we turned back to play with:
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| Mr. Squirrel |
Next stop, Colorado...
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