Arches National Park (Utah)

We had a 9am reservation for Arches National Park.
We tried to continue our power sightseeing game from the day before in Canyonlands, hitting as many trailheads and overlooks as possible. Our only restriction was to catch the sunset at Delicate Arch.
The most outstanding hike of the day was the one to Double O Arch and Black Angel. During the approximately 7 mile hike we saw several arches and very beautiful scenery. After the first mile there was a small climb that drastically reduced the number of hikers. After that, we saw very few people for most of the way and were able to enjoy the hike even more.
As planned, we arrived at the Delicate Arch trailhead 1.5 hours before sunset and had plenty of time to hike the 2 miles to the arch and enjoy the last rays of the setting sun. Of course, we weren't the only ones who wanted to see the sunset at this phenomenal spot. In fact, there were easily a hundred or more people there. The arch was constantly occupied for selfies and it was really hard to capture a moment without Instagrammers or TikTokers in front of it...

After the sunset we finished the day with some stargazing at the Panorama View Point. Unfortunately, this place is famous for its dark skies and lots of cars came and left, which made it very challenging to get a long exposure photo that wasn't overexposed due to all the car lights.

Arches National Park was really beautiful. Not just because of the arches, but more so because of the scenery and the nature of the trails, which involved scrambling up steep cliffs and through narrow canyons. We had no problem filling the whole day with short and long hikes (~19 km total), even though we spent 12 full hours in the park!Read more