The Arches

The next day we visited The Arches National Park. It’s very popular, and on my visit in 2015, I felt it was just too popular. The entrance queue was a mile long and most of the car parks were full. The walks had too many people. However, we managed to have a much shorter queue when we arrived, and park policy has changed, so that they stopped anyone from entering shortly after we arrived. As a result, it was much easier to go to any particular place and there weren’t quite so many people. The park is enormous and is a sandstone desert.

Our first stop was balancing rock.

The park has at least two thousand rock arches as well as many other rock erosion formations.

We then visited Delicate Arch, probably the most famous in the park, as it’s on every Utah number plate. Shortly into the walk we could see the arch from a distance.

It’s very difficult to take a photo of it without people.

On the way we saw some petroglyphs.

And expansive views.

There was a bird on one of the pillars near the arch.

And the views from the arch were great.

Later, we walked to Broken Arch.

And saw Tapestry Arch.

The rock is all called slip rock, but it’s very easy to walk on it, even when you’re at angles where you’d slide off anything else. It’s very beautiful country, and it’s no wonder the park is so popular.