Arches National Park.

After talking to Paul and Mary we decided to venture out today regardless of the weather and visit Arches National Park, all of us were feeling the itch after two days of confinement due to rain. Shortly before Paul and Mary picked us up it was raining but it cleared nicely as we drove into the park. Sandy and Mary decided to take the 18 mile Arches Scenic Drive for a good overview of the park.

 

As we entered the park you could see the rain falling on Moab.

 

Our first stop was at the Park Avenue Viewpoint, this is an open canyon flanked by tall rock that remind you of skyscrapers.

 

Our next stop was at the Courthouse Rock pullout.

 

Then it was on to the Balanced Rock parking area, we took the .4 mile trail around the rock.

 

From Balanced Rock we could see Turret Arch located in the Windows area of the park.

 

We then drove down to the Windows Area and walked most of the half mile trail down to Double Arch, Mary and Paul were enjoying the day.

 

We then walked up to the Windows where we got a closer look at Turret Arch.

 

We walked around the Windows taking the “Primitive Trail” back to the parking area. This view is from behind the North and South Windows, you can gauge the size of the windows by looking for two people standing inside the arch on the right.

 

As we walked back to the parking area we had a nice view of this valley, the La Sal Mountains are shrouded in clouds and will have a white coat of fresh snow when it clears.

 

This is the Fiery Furnace area, we stopped to eat lunch and take a few images but the sun was not out so we didn’t see that red color that the area is named for.

 

Our next stop was the parking area for Sand Dune Arch, we followed the trail between the fins to the arch. Sandy is dwarfed by fins on each side of the trail.

 

Sand Dune Arch had been colonized by two couples and their eight children who were running, screaming and jumping in the sand under the arch. One of the mothers encouraged the two oldest boys to walk out onto the top of the arch so we waited until the other parent shooed them off so we could get this image.

 

We were happy to leave Sand Dune Arch, our next stop was at Skyline Arch. We could see the rain coming but we started up the .2 mile trail to get this image before the sky opened.

 

 

Back in the Jeep we continued up to the end of the road where we toured the campground and drove through the parking area for the Devil’s Garden Trail, the rain was falling hard now and people were pouring off the trail so we continued through and drove back out of the park. The day had looked pretty bleak when we started but we were able to see a lot before we were rained out, Sandy and John enjoyed today’s outing with Paul and Mary.