ARCHES NATIONAL PARK - Utah Rocks !!!

MAY 2013

Arches National Park is open year round, as well as the Devil's Garden Campground there. Unfortunately, at 40' plus toad, McTraveler is too large for their sites.  Even though we're at the Moab KOA (see our RV Park Review), there are plenty of other area campgrounds to choose from.  So we take the toad (our Jeep Liberty) to spend the day at Arches which is located on US 191 just 5 miles north of Moab.

Arches is another star in Utah's lineup in the NPS system. Throughout the 73,000+ acre park you'll find close to 2,000 geological formations of windowed arches, towering spires that dwarfed us, comical hoodoos, impressive colossal sandstone fins, canyon slots that were sometimes a tight squeeze to hike through, and massive balancing rocks that blow your mind.  Some of the rock star attractions include Balanced Rock, the Delicate, Landscape and Skyline Arches, Devil's Garden, and the Park Avenue Trail. Arches National Park is known as having the world's largest concentration of natural sandstone arches.

To learn more about the history, landscape, flora and fauna, and climate of Arches National Park, please click here.

After checking out the displays and watching the film, we picked up the road guide and hiking brochure at the Visitor Center; then took the scenic driving tour that lead us though stunning landscape.  The road had numerous turn outs for scenic overlook photo ops; plus we found parking at the best hiking trails where we found ourselves up close and personal to amazing rock formations.

To get a closer look at the Landscape Arch; take the Primitive Loop which is the longest maintained trail in the park.  The trail head is located in the Devil's Garden section.

    Location: Northern area in Arches National Park
    Difficulty: Easy to Landscape Arch; moderate to complete the primitive loop
    Length: 7.2 miles (round trip) to complete the primitive loop
    Elevation gain: About 400 feet

A sampling of photos from our video

So now it's time to put your hiking boots on and hit the virtual trails with us.

We'd love to hear if you enjoyed our hike together, plus your actual experiences if you have been here, or if our journey has inspired you to add Arches National Park to your personal travel bucket list.  Thanks for joining us and hope to see you back soon for the next McTraveler's RV Adventure.

Until then, wishing you safe travels,
Pam, Jim, Maxx and Mollie