Arches National Park

We got an early start to the day, arriving at the entrance to Arches National Park by 7:45am. After showing our timed entry permit, we stopped at the visitor center to purchase our magnet for our collection. We had read that in order to avoid some of the crowds in the park, it is best to drive to the end of the park and then work your way back toward the entrance, so that is exactly what we did. 

The first hike of the day was on the Devil's Garden Trailhead which took us to Landscape Arch, Navajo Arch, Partition Arch, Tunnel Arch, and Pine Tree Arch. Each of these arches were beautiful and very different from each other.

The views along the main park road on our way to Devil's Garden Trailhead.

Pretty scenery along the trail.

In front of Landscape Arch. 

Navajo Arch

Partition Arch

Tunnel Arch

After the Devil's Garden Trail, we got back in the truck and started working our way back down the park road, stopping at the Skyline Arch, Sand Dune Arch, and The Fiery Furnace Overlook.

Jim standing in front of Skyline Arch.

The path to Sand Dune Arch.

Sand Dune Arch

Looking out from the Fiery Furnace Viewpoint

We had a picnic lunch near Balanced Rock. It's amazing that at this point in our day, we had only seen 7 of the more than 2000 arches that exist within Arches National Park!

Balanced Rock

After walking the short trail around Balanced Rock, we drove down the road toward The Windows section of the park.

Turret Arch

The North and South Window Arches

The North Window Arch

The Double Arch is a very unique arch. One theory suggests that it was created by two puddles on top that eventually, due to erosion over time, wore their way through the sandstone creating the arches.

We drove back along the park road to the Park Avenue Viewpoint.

Park Avenue

We saved the most impressive arch - Delicate Arch - for our last hike of the day. It was a 3-mile round trip hike that took us right to the base of the arch. The opening beneath the arch is 46 feet high and 32 feet wide. We felt very small posing for a picture underneath the arch!

Heading back to the parking lot.

By the time we finished the Delicate Arch hike, we had walked more than 28000 steps for the day!

As we wrapped up our time at Arches National Park, we both decided that this national park is near the top of our list of favorite national parks. It is incredibly beautiful and so unique!

Dead Horse State Park and Canyonlands National Park

We started our day at Dead Horse State Park where we were blown away by the beautiful views of the canyon and the Colorado River down below. We stopped at several of the viewpoints before making our way to Dead Horse Point. We spent some time walking the path along the canyon rim.

 

A highlight for Jim was seeing this Bighorn Sheep just a short way off the road.

The rim pathway at Dead Horse Point

After exploring Dead Horse State Park, we drove the short few miles to Canyonlands National Park. Our first stop, as always, was the visitor center. We were there during the solar eclipse and the visitor center was passing out eclipse glasses. Even though Utah was not in the path of totality, it was still fun to watch the progression of the eclipse using the glasses. 

We did the short walk down to Mesa Arch

Looking down at Mesa Arch

In front of Mesa Arch
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More pretty canyon views

When we got to the Grand View Point, we decided to do the 2-mile round trip Rim Walk.

The Rim Walk Trail

Watching the eclipse progression

Back in the truck, we drove northwest through the park to the Upheaval Dome hike.

Upheaval Dome

Our next stop was to check out the granaries at Aztec Butte that date back to 1200 AD. 

The granary

One of the last views of Canyonlands National Park as we drove back to Moab.

We drove back to Moab stopping for dinner at an Italian restaurant before heading to our RV Park, The Spanish Trails RV Park.