Arches National Park

Devil's Garden

We were shocked by the huge line to get in the park at about 10 AM. We headed directly to the Devil’s Garden area of the park (the end of the road). Thank goodness we lost cars along the way. We got one of the few remaining parking spots for the trail. Mary and I walked to Landscape Arch, a nice easy 1.6 mile trail. Mary returned to the car, and I continued on. 

Landscape Arch

The trail started scaling the rocks just a few hundred feet from Landscape Arch. Partition Arch was particularly interesting, since we looked through the Arch down to the trail far below. On the way to Navajo Arch, there were some interesting rock formations in the rock wall – holes and indents, sort of miniature arches. On the way, to Double O Arch I was following a group of people, and we all lost the trail. I could see it below, so I scrambled down the rocks to the trail. That cause me to miss the trail to Double O arch, but I continued on the primitive trail taking a different way back to the parking lot. On the way, I (and a few others) took a spur trail to Private Arch. Then further onto the primitive trail, where I took wrong turns at least twice and had to retrace my track to find the rock cairns of the true trail. I was amazed at the number of people who took the primitive trail, since we were scrambling up and down rocks, following a wash, or trekking in deep sand most of the way. It was fun, but I was tired by the time I returned to the parking lot. 

Rock wall with water seepage holes

We stopped for a picnic and then a quick hike to Sand Dune Arch and Broken Arch. Rather than take the main road back to town, we decided to try Willow Flats road which required high profile vehicles. Well, that was an interesting road. We went bouncing along, sometimes hitting rocks with our trailer hitch as we went up and down. Mary was driving and did a great job – but at one point we almost got stuck between a sand pit and a rock face. She put it into 4 wheel drive and with only 3 wheels on the ground (first a front wheel in the air, and then a back wheel) managed to get out of the sand pit. The road was a very long 8 miles to the highway. For dinner, we had a good pub dinner and beers at the Moab Brewery.