Moab, Arches NP

Journey map

Approximately:

• from Canyonlands SP (A) to Jug Handle Arch (B): 50 miles and 1h45 on road
• from Jug Handle Arch (B) to Fisher Towers (C): 38 miles and 1h20 on road
• from Moab (D) to Arches NP (E): 13 miles and 30 mn on road

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Sunday, May 31

Arches Park, mythical if any, of which everyone has heard about. We leave at 8 am and it's already 72°F; it promises because the schedule of the day is quite full.
Ritual visit at the VC and departure for the many viewpoints along the road.

Shortly after 9:30 am, we arrive at the parking of Turret, Windows and Double arches. There are already a lot of people and take pictures without anyone is an achievement. Many backlighting also.

From the same parking lot, we accede quickly to Double Arch. Returning to the car, we look at some flowers, one of them will give us a hard time to identify it: it's an endangered species and it's thanks to the help of U.S. correspondents that we found the information.

We continue to explore these multiple arches by Pothole, Sand Dune, Broken Skyline arches.

We park our car at Devil's Garden parking lot with difficulty: it's almost full; having filled the backpacks (picnic, water and materials), we leave around noon and it's 77°F.
We'll turn Tunnel Arch, Pine Tree Arch (backlighting) to arrive around 1:15 pm at Landscape Arch, where we stop for lunch.

Near Wall Arch, fallen on August 4, 2008, the way is a bit stiff and cameras return to the backpacks because sometimes we need our hands; we even meet a woman that two people help to go down because vertigo (we have doubts for the return).
Arrived on flat ground, we follow a small ridge (do not heckle too) which allows us to admire the beautiful views.

After a few "tricks", we come to Double O Arch (some, courageous, have already climbed to the summit). After long hesitation (Isabelle was not very motivated), we continue our hike to Dark Angel, beautiful black monolith that we see at some distance. We saw only 2 people on this part of hike made without any shade.

We set off to the return while passing again successively by Double O Arch and then, after a preview of Black Arch, the ridge of the outward trip.
Small error of way that takes us to Navajo Arch, quickly corrected. We begin the descent to Wall Arch that we had to get worried, and finally it's done without any difficulty, but must be a problem when the rock is wet. We arrive at the car at 5pm after hiking about 7.5 miles and it's 75°F. This hike was tiring, sometimes difficult but it was so beautiful!

We move quickly through the points of Fiery Furnace and Salt Valley Overlook to get to the start of the hike to Delicate Arch. Parking is at Wolf Ranch and we take the opportunity to see the petroglyphs "relatively" recents (presence of horse, so post-Columbian).

We also have, in this park, find other petroglyphs that I place here (I was asked to be discreet about their location).

Then we start the long climb of about 45 minutes to Delicate Arch (symbol of Utah) entirely on slickrock and sometimes quite steep. We arrive about 7pm and it's indeed a wonderful spectacle before us, but we are far from alone. Take a picture with nobody on is not easy, as the parade under the arch is endless; everyone but us seems to want to be photographed under the arch. A German close to us even ends up cry out and gets his way (which was also ours ) and we finally can watch the sunset quietly.

After about 15 miles of trekking, we return to our hotel (9:30 pm) to take a relaxing bath but not in the pool as it's a little bit late .