Walking in The Arches National Park, Utah

The Arches National Park is like no place I have ever walked in before. Set high on the desert plateau of Utah, there is little vegetation and the sparse trees are stunted and gnarled by the harsh environment. It’s a raw and exposed place, baking in the day and freezing at night. It is literally the Wild West. What draws visitors to the park are the natural sandstone arches, thousands of them. Fifteen million years of erosion created them and we’re here today to walk among them. It’s as different a landscape to the UK as chalk is to cheese.

It’s a truism that America is big, but just how vast and desolate much of it is has to be seen to be believed and our journey to the Arches is an experience in itself. The Americans like to name their roads, nothing boring like the M6 or B6412. US Highway 191 is part of the Grand Army Of The Republic Highway. And driving along it is an introduction to the remote emptiness of much of this land. Mile after mile of arrow straight roads crossing what is known as the Colorado plateau with brush-land stretching far into the distance to a wall of cliffs. Big skies above us and a limitless horizon ahead of us.

By chance we happen to visit the Arches National Park on one of a few days in the year that entry to all the National Parks in the USA is free. This is our good fortune but it means the park is busier than usual. There are a couple of walks I have my eye on and the first is a walk to what is probably the most well known natural arch in the world, and a symbol of the State of Utah, Delicate Arch.

We leave the RV at the trailhead car park and before long we arrive at Wolfe Ranch. John Wesley Wolfe lived here in the late 1800’s farming cattle. His daughter came to live with him and made him build a new cabin as she wasn’t prepared to live in the old one. That’s daughters for you. He duly obliged, that’s dads for you, and the cabin we see today dates from 1906.

From the ranch the trail winds its way through desert brush along a well defined path until it reaches some large sandstone outcrops. As we make our way up and over the smooth flat sandstone bluffs the sun starts to beat down and I appreciate how harsh this landscape is, it’s a hot dry desert with no shade and no water. Fortunately we are only walking three miles and it feels like today the whole population of Utah has joined us for free National Park day.

The path levels out and follows a sandstone plateau into a ravine where it skirts along the side of a rock wall. This has the effect of hiding the main objective of our walk from view until the very last minute, revealing it like a waiter in a posh restaurant removing a cloche with a dramatic “Ta-Da!”.

And dramatic and impressive it certainly is. At fifty two feet high and thirty two feet wide Delicate Arch is the biggest freestanding arch in the park and the most popular by far. The fact that it involves a decent hike to view it at its best also adds to its allure.

Mish and I sit ourselves down, have a drink and take in the view. All around is sandstone and scrub and in the far distance the snow capped La Sal mountains complete the Wild West picture. There is a united nations queue of people waiting to get pictures standing under the arch but Mish and I don’t think the United Kingdom needs representation at this particular event so watch as various poses and antics are acted out.

It’s the same way back but we divert off the main path to look at some historic rock art. The sandstone carvings, made by Native American Indians from the Ute tribe were made sometime between 1650 and 1850. We crossed a bridge on our RV trip that said “Historic Bridge, Built 1962” so 1650 is practically prehistoric by American standards. The Ute arrived in Utah in the 1300’s, long before the Spanish and the Mormons and the State is named after them.

After lunch in the RV we make our way to Devils Garden, not as scary as it sounds, for an afternoon walk to the longest arch in the park, Landscape Arch. The Devils Garden Trail is less exposed than the walk to Delicate Arch, protected by large sandstone walls and pillars that surround the path.

 

Landscape Arch is the longest arch in North America spanning 306ft. People used to be able to walk underneath it but rockfalls in the 1990’s put an end to that and now it has to be admired from a distance.

We walk on a little to get a flavour of the Devils Garden before returning to the van and conclude our visit with a scenic drive taking in some of the remarkable and unique natural features that spread throughout the park, many of which are named.

Route Map, Walk Stats, Geolocated Pictures Below.

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