Arches and a tired but brief stop at Canyon-lands National Park

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We said our farewells to Giles and friends and looked forward (NOT) to a full day of driving to get to Arches National Park, stopping on the way to post a big box of crap home. We got to the park at about 6pm, made our tea then went on a short 2 mile walk to stretch our legs and to view rocks that were supposed to resemble courthouses, which we could see, a little. The campsite was full so we had to leave the park and drive a few miles to another campsite but we weren’t sorry, as it was a really beautiful spot right next to the Colorado River.

In the morning we woke early as usual and headed straight into the park; it was so hot that we had to get there early to avoid walking in midday sun. We drove right through to the other end of the park and went on a 6 mile loop walk; some parts of the trail we couldn’t really see as it wasn’t marked properly and we were climbing over big rocks but it was good fun and made the walk more interesting although, the miles felt a lot longer because of the terrain. It was good climbing on top of the Double O arch but when Dim left me up there I had a few moments of panic getting back down!!!

By the time we got back to the car it was really hotting up but there were still more arches to see; next stop Delicate Arch. We were going to do a 2 mile walk to get up close but we settled for the upper overlook instead as our legs were tired; it was good to see this arch as it is the one that is most photographed and associated with the park. We had our dinner over-looking Balanced rock before heading to the windows arches; these too were nice but as you can maybe sense from Dim’s photo labels when you’ve seen 1 you’ve seen them all !! No not really; this was a lovely park that we both thoroughly enjoyed. So that was the end of our visit, and we had planned to miss out Canyon-lands National Park, but as it was so close we decided we should go and take a peek which is what we did.

Again more beautiful scenery and the canyon was different from the other canyons we had seen but we were a bit too tired to appreciate it as much as we could have. We didn’t really do any walking but went to several overlook points so we could see the different perspectives of the canyon; outstanding. We decided to get a few hours driving in and made it into Colorado where we camped on public lands and had another early night in preparation for the long drive to Rockies National Park tomorrow.

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Photos

Arches
This trip is turning into right National Parkathon!!

Mary on top
Love this pic

Navajo Arch
getting too hot at this point

Landscape Arch
This collapsed a few years ago - look how thin it is

Delicate Arch
This is the famous one, but we opted out the 4 mile uphill trek to get close...too hot!

Canyon
this looked a little the the Grand Canyon