Four days wandering the desert!

Arches National Park, Dead Horse Point State Park, and Canyonlands National Park

We have traveled just shy of 5,000 miles, made it 23 days into our trip, and had some amazing adventures.   Arches National Park has been a bucket list of mine forever and I am so excited to be here!!  I will let most of the pictures just speak for themselves! 

Arches National Park: April 12, 1929 became a National Monument by President Herbert Hoover. In 1971, Congress changed the status to a National Park.  

There is only one main park entrance to Arches National Park and it sits right on the Moab Fault.  You can see the fault line parallel to road, the west side of the road is 2,600 feet higher than the east side of the road.  

One thing we learned rather quickly is that hiking and sightseeing during the day in Arches is not a good idea.  With highs from 99-103 the entire time we were here, the earlier you can get out, the better.   We were able to see a good portion of the park over the 4 days we were here but sections of the park were closed for road and parking lot construction, and the parked closed most nights from 7P- 7A.   

Sunrise at The Windows Section: 

Balanced Rock

Garden of Eden

North Window

North Window South Window

Turret Arch

South Window

Double Arch

Here you go...where's Brodey?  Look for the light green dot! 

Doug sitting in the Double Arch

Where is Brodey AND Dunovan? 

Why go over when you can go under? 

Pothole Arch

Wolf Ranch and Delicate Arch at Sunset:

This cabin and root cellar are on the register of National Historic sites. John Wesley Wolfe (age 69) and his son, Fred, settled here, 1898, from Etna, OH.  Lived here for around 16 years.  It is located at the trail head to Delicate Arch.

The hike to Delicate Arch is 1.5 miles, one way, mostly straight up.  I took this looking back down at the parking lot...far in the distance is a white line, those are cars. 

This is NOT Delicate Arch

Don't look down!!

Delicate Arch is the most iconic arch and is located on the state license plate and tourist information.

It is a lot bigger than I imagined! 

When you have someone else take your picture, they cut off the top of the arch.  Oh, well. 

 The boys decided to see if they could climb on the ledge on the opposite side of delicate arch.  All these pictures were taken with my telephoto lens.  Follow the red and blue dots!

Boys through the arch! 

Dunovan taking our picture

You can see the ledge they climbed out on through the Arch. 

Can you find them on the canyon floor? 

Sunset at Delicate Arch 

Dunovan took these photos from the ledge they climbed out on.  This is a really unique perspective at sunset and shows just how large it really is.

Those 2 little dots in the center of the arch are Doug and I taking pictures of the boys. 

Arch through Arch photo

Can you guess which son this is? 

This photo was taken from a lookout point that we drove to on another day.  The arch is .75 miles away.  The ledge on the left is the one that the boys climbed on.

Devils Garden: 

We only hiked a small portion of this area. We did the Tapestry Arch loop, 4.5 miles round trip.  We saw 3 arches, Sand Dune Arch, Broken Arch, and Tapestry Arch. 

On the hunt for the first arch. It is located between these two high rock formations.

Sand Dune Arch gets its name because you have to walk through thick orange sand to get to it. 

On our way to Broken Arch, you see a sneek peek of it on the right. 

Lower view from one side of the arch. 

Upper view, trying to hold it up! 

Continuing the hike to Tapestry Arch.

Tapestry Arch

Can you find Brodey? 

Can you find him now? 

I just thought this was a cool tree.

Dead Horse Point State Park:

36 miles from Moab is Dead Horse Point State Park.  It over looks Canyonlands National Park.    The views were amazing and one of the most photographed views in the world, Gooseneck in the Colorado River. 

Big Mesa 

Those blue pools in the distance are Solar Evaporation Pools, which are used to remove the potassium chloride from the soil.  Doug found these extremely interesting.  Remember them because you will see them again later in the blog.  

Gooseneck in the Colorado River.  See that dirt road on that ledge down there?
Again, remember that road for later in the blog! 

Canyonlands National Park: 1964 of 257,640 acres, expanded in 1971 to 337,598 acres. 

The Colorado River divides the park into four districts: Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze, and the rivers themselves.   All these areas are connected by 4 wheel drive dirt roads.  Island in the Sky is the northern entrance to the park, and where we entered.  

We only had a short time in the park so we decided to take one of these dirt roads, Shafer Trail Road, to the canyon bottom and travel 23 miles to the next paved road that lead us back to Moab.   This single lane road started with 4 miles of switch backs down the canyon walls to the bottom.  I give Doug all his props for keeping us alive and allowing us this unique visit to the park!  Hold on to your hats, keep your arms and legs inside the car for the whole time...it's going to be a bumpy ride, literally!! 

Shafer Trail Road: 

And away we go....

EEEEKKKKK!!

Looking up is way cooler than looking down at this point!

We made it!! 

Looking back at the canyon we just drove down.  

The canyon bottom had some awesome views! 

These formations were just wicked cool! 

Remember that Gooseneck in the river from before?  We made it down there! 

Doug had so much fun driving his truck.  Good Deadpool! 

 Remember back to Dead Horse Point State park and I told you about those evaporation pools?  Here they are up close.  We drove right by them.

We made it out of the canyon and ironically, the moment we made it back on paved road a very appropriate song came on the radio.   

Thus ends our time in SE Utah.  We made so many great memories here that I am sure my boys will talk about for the rest of their lives... like remember that time we drove on that crazy road to the bottom of a canyon, or Brodey climbed on every rock, big or small, he could find, or when Dunovan learned to shuffle cards and play multi-player solitaire.  Priceless memories that will last them and Doug and I forever...

We are heading out tomorrow across Utah to visit 3 more NPs here in Utah: Capital Reef National Park, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park.