Moab Day 2 - Arches National Park - More Arches & Some Other Stuff

Omigoodness.  We took so many pictures while we were at Arches.  It took a while to condense them into a small enough group to fit in a post.  But there are still a LOT.  So.  You've been warned.

After Landscape Arch we pulled our lunch out of the car and ate at a picnic area within Arches.  THEN the kids finally had a chance to ride their scooters (yes, we brought them) for a few minutes while we cleaned up lunch.  They'd been begging all morning!

After lunch the kids were pretty tired and Ben was itching to do a little off-road driving.  (After all, what's the point of driving an SUV if you always stay on pavement?)  So we decided to drive on an ATV trail and let the kids nap for a little while.  It actually worked out great, and we had fun driving on the trail until we saw a sign that the next part of the trail required 14" of clearance.  Time to turn around - the Honda Pilot isn't that kind of SUV!  The kids got a little nap and we got a great view of Skyline Arch (above).

Unique terrain in the park.

Another view from our off-road drive - I love the contrast of the fins and other sandstone rock formations of Arches in contrast with the La Sal Mountains in the background.

Once we finished our little drive and the kids had gotten a bit of a nap, we did a hike to Sand Dune Arch.

This was kind of a cool hike because you literally hike through sand and between these fins to be able to see the arch.

We found it!

The kids were more excited about climbing around than admiring the arch.  No problem - lots of rocks to climb on!

Jack thought Thomas would enjoy the sand.  In the top right picture he's pouring the sand out of  Thomas.

When we hiked back to the car, Cat found another big rock to climb.  Queen of the World!

Next hike of the afternoon was to the upper viewpoint of Delicate Arch.  We debated hiking to the arch itself, but it would have been a long hike, it was late in the afternoon, and we didn't want to put the kids (or us) through that.  Next time we'll definitely do it though.  The upper viewpoint was a good hike - a bit of a workout - but it was neat to still see this iconic bit of landscape.  (For those of you who don't know, Delicate Arch is featured on one of the two varieties of Utah State license plates... as well as most tour guides, brochures, billboards, etc.  Very popular.)

Hangin' Out with good ol' DA.

Thomas stayed in the car while we hiked to DA.  Jack opted for his new Army trucks instead.

Our last hike of the day was actually our very favorite: Double Arch.  Can you see the  two arches stemming from one rock on the left side of the picture?  Yep, you guessed it.  That's Double Arch.  We thought about doing a longer hike instead of this one, but I was intrigued by the promise of a "spectacular arch" when I was reading the park newsletter.  The first reason we liked this hike was that you could see the Arch the entire hike - there was no guessing of how much further it would be until you got there.  That was so nice!

Ben was holding the camera as we hiked to Double Arch.  He started practicing self-portraits as Jack hung out in the back pack.

I think it's cool that Eliza and I ended up in this self-portrait.

Just to give you some perspective of how huge this formation is... do you see the person standing right in the middle of the fore-arch?  Yep.  I know.  Huge.

Who says hiking isn't fun?!?

The second reason we loved this hike was that it was a great place to climb rocks.  The kids had a blast!   In this collage I put a star in the exact same spot of the formation in each picture.  It is a cavity in the rock that Cat climbed up to and laid down in.  It was so high!  And she might have gone higher if it hadn't been the end of the day, it was getting dark, and we were ready to get dinner.

Jack did a little rock climbing too.

E just hung out.

Leaving Double Arch

The sunset was beautiful as we were leaving the park.

Just a few more interesting bits of scenery from the day.

We had a wonderful day at Arches.  It was fun and interesting and active and even though the kids had to be prodded now and then, they were excellent.  I highly recommend that anyone who hasn't been to Arches National Park GO next time you're anywhere near Moab, UT.  (Of course, if you're anywhere near Moab, UT it's probably because you intend to go to Arches National Park, because there's pretty much nothing else around...)