Exploring Arches National Park/Moab

After a five hour drive from Zion, we arrived at Arches National Park in the early afternoon.  The first hike we wanted to tackle was Delicate Arch.  We had a timed entry ticket to the park and the there was no line to enter. The arch is massive and the backdrop of the snow covered La Sal mountains made it feel a bit magical.

After hiking to  Delicate Arch, we stopped by Double Arch on the way out of the park.  Double arch is a very short walk from the parking lot. You cannot even call it a hike.  Double Arch appears massive as you approach it.

This arch was one of the kids' favorite places in the park.  They loved climbing the rocks all around double arch.  I've said it once already, but we do not have rocks like these in the east!

The view from Double Arch

We entered the park again on our second day in the area.  The entire morning was spent hiking most of the devil's garden loop including the primitive trail.  We did not do all the spur trails, so there is no exact alltrails link to share for what we did.  We did the loop clockwise and visited landscape arch, double O arch, and finished up on the primitive trail.  It was about 5 miles total.  The park has put more markers (blue tags on trees) to help with route finding on the primitive trail.  That was helpful, yet we still managed to get turned around a bit!

The kids were toast after this, but I managed to convince everyone to make one more quick stop.  Sand dune arch is another arch that you can easily walk from the parking lot to.  It was a great place for a snack, and they once again enjoyed climbing there.

We spent mornings hiking all around and the afternoons lounging by the pools at our hotel.  It was a nice combo.  It's a neat experience sitting in the hot sun by a cool pool surrounded by red rocks and snow capped mountains in the distance.  I soaked in all the unique scenery.

We began our final day in Moab, by leaving the kids at the hotel.  While they slept in/watched a movie, Charlie and I did one final hike. We hiked the Fisher Towers trail HERE.  I loved this hike. It was 4.2 miles and 1400 feet of elevation gain.  We hiked through the tall stone spires and out to a great viewpoint. It was about a 30 minute drive from our hotel, but the drive was beautiful as it followed the Colorado river.

For the afternoon, we booked a rafting trip down the Colorado river with Mild to Wild rafting.  Our rafting was definitely on the mild side!  It was more of a float than taking on rapids.  We knew this however and we prepared the kids that it would be low key.  While they would have enjoyed more rapids, they were thankful to be doing something other than hiking!

We drove into the park one final time our last evening in Moab.  We headed to the Windows Arch parking lot to watch the sunset.  It was beautiful.  It happened to be one of those evenings where you could watch the sunset in one direction and then watch the full moon rise in another.  It was a great way to end our trip.