Thursday, October 2

Stay in Moab UT, Arches National Park (Day 1)

Weather:
  Lows: Moab (airport): 49; Moab: 48; Arches National Park: 54
  Highs: Moab (airport): 85; Moab: 88; Arches National Park: 88
Hikes: 7.4 miles
0.9 mi one-way, ~160 feet elevation : Part of Devil's Garden Trail (Landscape Arch, Tunnel Arch, Pine Tree Arch)
0.3 mi one-way                      : Skyline Arch
0.9 mi one-way, ~120 feet elevation : Broken Arch, Sand Dune Arch
1.6 mi one-way, ~540 feet elevation : Delicate Arch

Arches! Many arches! However, the day started running into the paving crew again. Apparently, they didn't finish on Wednesday. And actually, they didn't finish on Thursday or Friday either as one-lane roads and pilot cars were a recurring theme through Monday in Arches National Park.

We start with a portion of the Devil's Garden trail, and apparently with a lot of others as there were over 100 vehicles at the trailhead parking lot. But the crowd thinned once we got on the trail. We went to Landscape Arch, and took spur trails to Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch. We planned to visit Wall Arch, which was up the trail past Landscape Arch and had collapsed a couple of months earlier, but we did not get that far after all.

Our tour of various arches in the park continued with a walk to Skyline Arch, and a hike to Broken Arch and Sand Dune Arch.

For sunset, we did the iconic Arches hike to the iconic arch, Delicate Arch. The bad part of being on the iconic Arches hike is that there are a lot of people who are there. The good part of being on the iconic Arches hike is that it truly is one of Earth's greatest locations. After hiking about a mile-and-a-half and up around 500 feet, when you turn the corner about the rock wall and first see the 52 ft. tall Delicate Arch on the other side of the slickrock bowl, it is a spectacular sight.