Blogs from Arches National Park, Utah, United States, North America - page 4

Op een dag weet je het: ik hou van Utah! Nooit meer zal ik dit denigrerend een fly-over state noemen. Wat een schitterend landschap! California is mooi, maar mag nog niet de veters strikken van al het natuurschoon dat in Utah te bewonderen is. Na Zion en Bryce zijn we vandaag naar nog twee grote parken geweest: Arches National Park en Dead Horse Point State Park. In Arches National Park ligt het landschap bezaaid met grote blokken rotsmassa's, verspreid over het park alsof een gigantische Zwarte Piet hier pepernoten heeft gestrooid; alleen zijn deze pepernoten enorm grote, lompe rotsmassa's. De rotsen in Bryce hadden door erosie allerlei verfijnde vormen hebben verkregen waar je met minimale fantasie allerlei figuren in kunt zien zoals koninginnen, apostelen, paarden en theepotten; de rotsen in Arches daarentegen zijn voornamelijk grote vormloze ... read more

We arrived...after a long drive. Took about 1.5 hours longer than planned to get here (8hrs), but all was safe. The mountain passes were slow moving uphill, we could maintain about 45, but we were speed restricted to 35 going downhill...and we can understand why! We had several stretches of downhill w/ 7% grade for over 7 miles. The rig, made good use of its exhaust brake...kept us below 40 without touching the brakes. Amazing views all along the way! Mi Hyon drove for a couple hours to help out...2 hours is about all she can take. The RV park at Moab is about 1 mile from Arches NP and 5 from Canyon Lands and 102 degrees HOT! "but it's a dry heat ;-) Today we hit arches and words are not enought to describe the ... read more

We are driving to Arches National Park and we are running late as usual and Audra pulls us over and says "Hey, this is the turn for Goblin Valley - We HAVE to go to Goblin Valley!" So, what do we do? Go to Goblin Valley! It was a pretty cool place - like lots of giant mushrooms and (for those of you familiar with Super Mario Brothers, Mushroom!) The kids could run around and through them. I guess a sci-fi movie, Galaxy something or another, was filmed there. What a fantastic place to play hide and seek! I we lived here, the next birthday party would be held there! Off to Arches National Park. One after another, just another fabulous park! So very interesting and different than anything we have ever seen. The colors of ... read more

Today we are going back to Arches National Park to do some hiking that had to be postponed when we arrived. After that we will make our way into Colorado and our last two nights of camping before getting to Denver. I let Debi sleep in this morning (7 AM) but we have a long (but exciting) day ahead of us. We got packed up early and hiked at Arches National Park at the Devil’s Garden Trailhead. The first mile to Landscape Arch was easy. This arch is just a slender piece of sandstone that seems to defy gravity. The second mile was much more difficult and required steep climbs over rocks and up slickrock. At the end of the trail was a beautiful arch called Double O (one arch on top of another). With side ... read more

May 10th, Thursday (continued) The Arches National Park is a park not to be missed!! We wonder how many people drive Interstate 70 and not bother to go a little over 20 miles south to see these spectacular views. This park contains the largest concentration of natural stone arches in the world---more than 2,500. To be labeled an arch the hole must have an opening of at least three feet long in any one direction. We drove through the park and saw balanced rock and those arches that you didn’t have to hike a long ways to see. The campground here, at Arches, is situated on a ridge with an absolutely glorious view—unfortunately, it was full. After touring this park, we drove 6 miles south of Moab to Ken’s Lake, a BLM campground on a small ... read more