Part of a series: (links to go live as they get posted)
The boyfriend and I had two days in Arches National Park. As suggested in many touring sources, we also signed up for the ranger-led Fiery Furnace hike first thing. Full-credit goes to the boyfriend for talking me into going through with this original plan. The rocks are pretty intimidating up close for a Midwesterner like me. I almost chickened out.
So with the Fiery Furnace walk booked for the morning of day two, this left us all of the first day to explore.
The park is massive. I believe there is almost forty miles of intra-park roads to drive. Once again, I must restate how important it is to bring in enough water and food for the entire day. These two park maps show how we divided up our day and may be a good suggestion for your outing as well.
We did the portion circled in brick red on the first day. We saved the circled purple area for the second day.
The visitor center is in the bottom left hand corner of the second photo. From there, it’s a series of switchbacks to climb into the park. Take a look as you drive, but the first stop-and-get-out point will be at Park Avenue. This hike is rated moderate, but I think that is only because of the steep decent (rock stairs provided) at the very beginning, starting right off of the parking lot. It could also be that the trail is a lot of bare rock (called slickrock) and sand. But if you have a hat, sunscreen, and water, this is a great leisurely way to get acquainted with the environment.
It looks more imposing than it is. The boyfriend had to talk me through this one as well. I’m glad he did, but I did feel a bit foolish once we arrived back at the car. The hike is two miles round trip (down and back) and should take less than an hour. On our day, there was a group of three women with toddlers going through. On the climb back out of the trail, they carried the babies on their shoulders, hips, backs, etc. Moms rule!
The scenery changes with every step. There is just as much to see coming back as going out.
From here, we moved onto Balanced Rock and the Windows area. These are nice shorter walks along fairly developed paths. There are a lot of options clustered in this area.
One of my favorite walks on this trip was the Windows Primitive Loop. It seems that a lot of people like to keep the parking lot in view so not many people joined us on this walk around the backside of the Windows formations. For the first time since entering the park, I got a sense of what the early travelers of this area must of felt. I couldn’t hear car noise or people talking. There was just open land and the mountains in the distance. I believe it’s a mile loop that is relatively flat. It wasn’t strenuous at all.
Here, I’m going to cheat a little. We actually did the Delicate Arch hike to close out our second day, but if I had to do it over again smarter, I would have done it on the first day.
It’s a three-mile up-and-back hike to Delicate Arch. I had heard that it is best seen at sundown. And it is. The light makes the rocks glow red. However, this is not a trail on which you want to get caught in the dark so make a note of the sunset time. It is a serious climb up a lot of rock, but it is not as bad as all the signs warn it is. Here’s a picture the boyfriend took at the point of the hike where you think you’ve made a terrible mistake.
The parking lot is circled in pink. Then the pink line shows the trail up to that point. But if you use your larger muscle groups (thighs, rump) to climb instead of your calves, you should be fine. And once you reach the not-bare-rock area, you’re almost there. It’s this first part that gets most people.
Delicate Arch sits in a natural amphitheater where you can sit, relax, gaze at the scenery, and reflect on your day. It’s a great place to hang out and decompress. That’s how I would have liked to end day one, if I hadn’t been too chicken.
Once I understood that nothing was going to be as bad as they were in my mind, I was a lot more gun-ho for day two. The boyfriend and I got to the park early for the Fiery Furnace walk. For that experience, please see part 1. It is a full three hours so when we finished up, it was time for lunch. We ate next to and talked with a nice couple touring in an old VW Westfalia. Once we parted, the boyfriend and I headed for the final unexplored major area of the park. On the way to Landscape Arch, we drove by Skyline Arch but did not stop.
I think the Landscape Arch area, besides the trek to Delicate Arch, contains some of the hardest hikes in the park. Even the “easy” trial to Landscape Arch is hard. I wrote about that in part 1 as well. But if you are up for some nice mountainous hiking by this point, the Devils Garden Primitive Trail is for you. There’s scrambling, leaping, and picking the right line. Because the traffic is much lighter, it’s really a good place to enjoy your travel mates and the environment. We had some of these arches all to ourselves for extended periods of time. Really nice.
Unfortunately, due to the length of the trail, we ran out of water and couldn’t make it all the way around. Truthfully, I was also pretty tired by this point. We made our way back to the car to take the long drive back to the park entrance. Going past everything once again, it felt like a nice way to say good-bye.
Tags: Travel by M
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This section of the national park protects an area of mesas. These flat-topped plateaus rise in layers. This makes activity choices fairly obvious. Either you can explore the relatively flat but short area atop the mesas or you can tackle the steep climbs and descents of the sides. There are long hard hikes and short easier hikes. Nothing is in between.