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Published: April 20th 2010
We left the cool, snowy Bryce Canyon and were hit by the heat of Arches National Park. It was a long drive but it was broken up by a scenic drive through Capitol Reef National Park (a National Park created by a fold in the earths crust.
The temperature in Arches was probably 25'C but compared to wintery weather in Bryce it felt quite tropical and we were loving it.
Arches National Park is made up of yip you guessed it ............... many sandstone arches (around 2500) created by the natural process of weathering over millions of years.
On our first day we viewed as many arches and rock formations as we could. We got to see the famous balancing rock and delicate rock (from a distance); two arches called the 'windows'; skyline arch; broken arch and sandune arch. They were everywhere we looked - quite amazing.
We were beginning to feel all 'arched' out but there was still more to come the following day. We set up our camp later that afternoon - to avoid the heat, and enjoyed watching the sun go down over the rocks. We were in a perfect setting with our campsite
amongst all the rocks.
The following morning we tried to get an early start as we wanted to explore more of the arches on foot, and wanted to avoid the heat of the midday sun. It was another beautiful day but fortunately not as hot as the previous day. Our first walk was to Delicate Arch - it did not look that impressive from afar, but once we were up close to it, it was quite impressive, and we looked like miniatures compared to it. We then moved onto Devils Garden which has one of the most famous arches - Landscape Arch. It was quite a long trek in the heat (along soft sand and then atop rock formations called fins) to view this arch, but it was so worth it. It is incredible how these arches manage to defy gravity and remain standing, especially this one - from base to base it is the length of a football field. Absolutely brilliant. Whilst we were out there we decided to carry on with our trekking to see even more (why not). We got to see Navajo Arch, Partition Arch, but the best for us was Double O Arch -
an arch on top of a smaller arch.
As you can see we were quite tired from all these arches by the end of the day, but we were quite satisfied with all we had seen. There is only so much you can take before it becomes too much, but we had made the most of our days in Arches and rested in the sun for the remainder of the day.
That is it for National Parks for a while - we have a weeks break from camping and are going to treat ourselves to the comfort of a bed. We head into Colorado next to see what the Rockies have to offer.
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hayley bruton
non-member comment
wheres billy??
Ok what have you done with the other half of billy?? Sands you have either got amazingly good with your trick photography (in that case you are taking all pictures of me in the future!) or billy boy has dissolved! i thought america made you fat? ha ha i know i should be commenting on the gorgeous scenery but thats a given and i am too jealous to do it anymore!!