Millions Of Arches, Arches For Me

The last of Utah's big 5 National Parks is Arches, and it didn't disappoint. Its amazing to think this whole area was once bottom of a massive internal sea reaching across to the Appalachian Mountains in the east. This area is special as it got cut off and the sea evaporated off 27 times leaving behind a salt deposit 500 ft thick. The Coloradan plateau then got pushed up and the salt was forced into cracks in the rock. Water penetrated and dissolved the salt and the area collapsed leaving behind these amazing thin fins of rock. Erosion did the rest to create over 2,000 windows, bridges and arches in the soft sandstone.

Miraculously we had reserved a camp spot for the night in advance, so it meant we could take our time and we headed to Delicate Arch trailhead. It was a really nice walk through soft golden sand and over the slick rock before the massive and precarious arch suddenly appeared. Not content with hundreds of photos from the normal angles and went off-piste and navigated a high rocky ridge to get some really impressive views.

We then set up camp in a gorgeous sight surrounded by globular rock fins and made some tasty soup from our leftover Thai before heading out on a trail from the camp site taking in 3 more impressive arches and scrambling up some narrow rocky slots. Sunset from the top of a rock fin rounded off a great day, although the moon rise amongst the growing clouds was actually more impressive.

The next day we tackled the longer loop and saw at least a dozen more arches, including the highly fragile landscape arch - the longest in the park and exceedly thin so I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't last beyond a few years. After a quick lunch we stopped off at the places we missed on the way in. They are probably the most impressive in terms of grandeur but the fact you can drive up to them does diminish the overall enjoyment of them (chances of a person free photo are less than remote!). One of the most impressive sights is the balanced stone, but to be honest we pulled up, left the engine running, took our snaps and headed off so hopefully you can understand why a hard earned although less impressive view is more rewarding.Read more