On our way to Bryce National Park in mid-September , we decided to stop into Arches National Park for a few hours. A hidden jewel in the middle of the desert! The park itself is not very big and the drive throughout the park can easily be made in a few hours. But I would strongly recommend getting out and exploring some of these incredible arches. We took the 3 mile hike up to Delicate Arch (and yes it is somewhat up), one of the most popular arches in the park. Be sure to take plenty of water as this is out in the open and does gain some elevation. You will be rewarded with an incredibly huge arch that you can walk right up to for some great photo opportunities. Be sure to stop at the side trail near the parking lot either on the way up or down to see some incredible petroglyphs. Then make the drive into the cool little town of Moab for lunch or dinner! For pictures of our visit to Arches, please check out our blogs on Delicate Arch, Park Avenue and Arches National Park:
http://hikinginglacier.blogspot.com/2012/10/arches-national-park.html
http://hikinginglacier.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-walk-down-park-avenue.html
http://rockymountainhikingtrails.blogspot.com/2012_11_01_archive.html
Arches National Park Trip Report
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Hi wave,
Glad to hear you discovered Arches and Moab, although it's not exactly a "hidden gem". You should plan another trip there, you can spend a week and still not do/see it all!
Happy travels
Arches is fantastic, but next time in the Moab area go to Canyonlands too!! It is also awesome.
As Dayle wrote Arches isn't exactly a "hidden gem". However, as she also wrote you could spend at least several more days there.
Canyonlands, Dead Horse Point, several more excellent hikes in Arches in addition to Fiery Furnace, Rte 279, Rte 128 (Fisher Towers), etc, etc.
As you wrote, the Delicate Arch hike is uphill and quite tiring if this is your first day in elevation on this trip (as it was mine).
Like your photos. They brought back memories.
Which route did you take from Moab to Bryce and what did you do in between.
Thanks for the report.
Arches has always been one of my favorite parks - the hiking is amazing! So glad you enjoyed it. Bryce is incredibly scenic too! I'm also curious which route you took between Moab and Bryce.
We'd love to go back and explore more of Arches and maybe even rent bikes in Moab. The trail system there (at least that we could see from the road), looked great!
Since the visit at Arches was an unplanned stop, we wanted to get to Bryce in time to explore some of the rim trails before dark, so we went 191 back to I-70 and then Highway 89 straight to Bryce. We did meet some folks in Bryce who suggested we stop at Capitol Reef National Park on our next visit, although we don't really know much about that park.
Bryce was spectacular...I'll have to post a trip report on our visit!
Looking forward to your trip report on Bryce. It is, indeed, spectacular. Capitol Reef, the town of Torrey and the drive from Bryce to Torrey on Scenic Rte 12 are all incredible too. You'll have to check them out on your next trip!