Arches National Park

Today I spent the entire day touring Arches National Park. I had camped two or three miles from the entrance so I got there early in the day and was able to devote the entire day to the park.

There was a pretty good climb just to get up from the entrance, and then several other good climbs throughout the day as well. The main route was 36 miles round trip, plus I took a few side hikes as well as an extra five mile detour to see a few more things in the park.

The main attraction was obviously the scattered arches throughout the park, with the most impressive being the landscape arch, which is one of the longest and is very skinny. What was really cool was that a tourist had been on scene when part of it collapsed and had actually caught a photograph during the collapse, which is on display at the arch.

Towards the end of the day I was getting tired, and it started to seem that the landscape was more of the same. One arch seemed just like the next, and the hills seemed bigger on the way out. It was definitely even worse because I knew I had to get back to Moab for the night to pick up more food and water, so I had to do an extra 5 or 10 miles at the end of the day, since I hadn't stocked up for enough days when I went through town the day before.

Conclusion at the end of the day, lots of cool stuff to see, but too many hills.


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