Arches National Park

I was expecting to fall in love with Arches. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wildly unique with over 2,000 arches in the park, but it hasn’t been my favorite so far. I think this was mostly because there weren’t many longer hikes, and most of the park can be seen from your car either driving through the park or by walking along a path, which makes it very accessible, and hence one of the more popular parks.

During the winter months, the park gets a decent amount of snow and a lot of ice. Hiking trails like Delicate Arch and Devil’s Playground Primitive Loop area near impassible without traction cleats – we have YakTrax, but also saw a number of people using Kahtoola’s for even more traction. We took them off most times when there was no longer a lot of snow and ice in an effort to protect the rocks (as you hike, you’ll see a lot of white, small scrapes from cleats), which was fine since they’re really easy to take on and off.

Day 1

Balanced Rock

From some angles, Balanced Rock doesn’t look that impressive, and then you walk a few paces around it, and all of a sudden this HUGE rock is balancing on basically nothing. It was a cool first glimpse into what the park offered.

Broken Arch Trail

Sand Dune Arch

Hiding in the fins of rock, Sand Dune Arch was our first arch. Since we had seen myriad photos before we left of the others, we knew this one was small compared to others, but the way the light filled the canyon between the fins that hid this arch was incredible.

Broken Arch

Broken arch wasn’t broken. I was disappointed & Manfriend thought I was crazy (not for the first time that day!).

Tapestry Arch

Tapestry Arch was the last arch on Broken Arch Trail. It was fascinating at one point because you could see how the arches form – the rocks falling away from the rest of the wall, leaving the arch formation.

Walking between the fins was wild – not quite a canyon, but for a few moments it felt like it.

Skyline Arch

A very short walk from the road, Skyline arch has a hike behind it that connects to the campground that we walked through earlier.

Delicate Arch

The most famous arch, arguably in the world, Delicate Arch is found at the end of a 1.5 mile hike. When we went, the last part of the path was very icy, to the point where people were literally sliding down on their butts. Wearing our YakTrax made the trail doable.

Lately I’ve found myself terrified of ledges – not heights, but ledges. Arches NPS is all about the ledges, and a section to the left of Delicate Arch was a ledge that I wanted to go over to get a different angle of the arch, but Manfriend did it for me… while I turned the other way so I wouldn’t have to see him crawling along the edge. It makes me feel like I failed, and I hate that feeling like there’s something that I can’t do, but I’m only human.

The Windows

When you approach The Windows, you can’t see both of them, so it looks like any other arch in the park, but if you go around to the other side on the Loop Trail, it almost looks like Batman’s mask!