Utah Trip, Part 2, Arches and Canyonlands NPs

Hello Everyone and welcome back for part two of our Utah National Parks Trip. We left off last time just as we were arriving in Moab. If you missed part one, you can read it here. We spent the remainder of our trip in a tiny house rental community with a full kitchen, living area and bedroom. We even had a small outdoor space with a grill and a nice deck to relax on.

Arches NP

Arches requires a reservation between 7AM and 4 PM to enter the park. We had reservations on Friday for 1 PM and Monday for 11 AM. On the advice of a fellow traveler we met in Zion, we entered the park before 7 AM both days. It was only a 15 minute drive from our rental to the park entrance and we were in the park both days by 6:30. The mornings were cool and it was pleasant to be there with fewer people. We had to walk at least a little ways to get to the arches. Some of the walks were easier than others and there was some walking in deep sand and on what was called slick rock.

I’m going to share just a few of the arches we saw. Some you could walk up to and through, others you could see from the trail.

These are just a few of the arches we saw and we only saw a fraction of the ones in the park.

In the picture above is Delicate Arch, the iconic arch in the park. We are viewing it from the Upper Delicate Arch Viewpoint Trail. The arch is about 1 mile away and the last part of the trail includes an almost 200 ft steep climb. There is also a strenuous trail that will take you to the arch itself, but we decided that we didn’t want to use one of our days just going to this arch.

We are on the trail to Double Arch in the picture above. This whole section is called The Parade of Elephants. Can you see the elephant?

Besides the arches, there were a few other things we saw. Above is Balanced Rock. There was a nice short trail around the entire rock. There were some pretty views of it early in the morning.

For our last hike of the trip, we did the Park Avenue Trial which took us by the Courthouse Towers and through a small canyon.

Between our two days in Arches, we took a well deserved break on Saturday. We spent the morning at our tiny house, then spent the afternoon in Moab. Besides all the touristy shops, there were several nice shops showcasing local artisans. We had a nice afternoon with a stop at a local brewery, then dinner on the upper deck of one of the downtown restaurants.

Canyonlands NP

On Sunday, we went to Canyonlands, about 25 miles from Moab. This was our fifth park for the week. Each park had it’s own geological characteristics and one word to describe Canyonlands was “vast”. We ended up doing just over seven miles of hiking on this day. Most of it between easy and moderate although there were a few places we were scrambling up the rocks and walking along cliff edges.

Our first stop was Mesa Arch. It was a beautiful sight with the sun shining on the underside of the arch.

The arch itself was beautiful, but when you walked under the arch, this was the stunning view you were greeted with.

Next are are a few pictures of the canyons from some of our hikes.

Did you notice the roads at the bottom of the canyons? This is park has miles and miles of off road vehicle roads.

My husband really liked this park and became a little adventuresome! I was a little more cautious although I did some scrambling that I might not have considered doing at the start of the week.

On Tuesday, we had another four hour drive back to Salt Lake City. We only backtracked for an hour before heading northwest. We ended up going over a pass that was about 9000 ft again and we got into a few snow flurries. Utah is a wonderful state to visit. We had a great time but were ready to come home. We got back to Dulles at midnight and we still had an hour to drive. On the way home, we had to dodge all the deer. Watching for them kept us awake at least.

Next time, I’ll have a little news on our next new adventure and a new quilt to share. I hope you enjoyed seeing just a slice of our trip. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Brenda