Arches National Park
So this early-morning started at the Chesler Park Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. We were planning on an hour drive to get to Arches national Park which is up 191 about 40 miles. Arches National Park is a unique experience as the park itself was elevated from the main road entering it. You are presented with the visitor center to begin and then must head up the hill to the main area.
The first site began with ‘Wall Street’ which shows massive rock formations and incredible walled landscapes that almost appear like Monument Valley. This was followed by the Petrified Dunes and Balanced Rock, then onward to Double Arch which is very famous within the National Park system. We decided to park on the side of road and get out and explore the Double Arch and the Windows Arch as well. Brandon and Savannah enjoyed this section after exploring but they were a little tired after thus couldn’t hike as well.
After that we headed to the Delicate Arch hike, which is the most famous scene in all the US national park system and especially Utah. This hike is a little more stressful than the hike stats give, as it has an elevation gain of over 800ft during the hot summer months. It is only about 2 miles in, but still can be tolling in the heat of summer!
It took us about an hour to get to the top of the hike, and once you turn around the corner before the arch, you are presented with an open expanse of sandstone, with the arch glimmering in the short distance away.
It was now time for pictures, and as with any major attraction at a tourist destination, there an immense amount of people waiting in lines for pictures. It took us about 20 minutes to take the picture after waiting in line, but the worst part was the last people in front of us. They were foreigners that didn’t know they were supposed to wait in line for pictures but when it was their turn they took forever and it upset a lot of people.
After a bunch of group pictures together, we decided to head to the last of the stretch of the park which included the Landscape Arch (which I believe is the longest arch in the world). We were hoping to bike that day but decided to walk and hike as the prices were very expensive to rent bikes and didn’t encompass what we wanted to see. Nonetheless we had a great time exploring Arches National Park.
We needed some food, as it was lunch time, so we headed to the Moab Brewery for a few beers and a great lunch afterwards. This put us around 4 o’clock in the afternoon with plenty of daylight so we headed back to camp with groceries for the night. A couple of us went hiking in Canyonlands again while a few others took a shower and cleaned up and relaxed. This put us at the end of the day and after hiking halfway down the trail at Chesler Park we once again decided to turn around due to the lack of light. This is a hike that we definitely want to come back to in the future, as the landscape was absolutely incredible.
This was still fun to hang around these massive rock formations and explore the vast wilderness. We were told that we had to keep our trash and fires out due to the burn notice, so once the Ranger left we decide to play Uno before we went to bed. I believe everyone got a good nights sleep finally after many nights of trying. That day we ended up having to buy a new propane stove due to some mechanical issues with the single burner stove we had bought for the trip. We held onto that stove but ended up buying a $100 Coleman two burner stove. We ended up returning that stuff later in Las Vegas for full credit at bass pro shops which I was very happy about.
June 20 Expenses
40 lunch
17.52 gas
16.87 grocery
Total – 74.39
MILES DRIVEN – 203