Arches National Park

One of the last things I did in my trip to Utah was to add another National Park to my list of visited parks: the Arches National Park. This park is right next to Moab in southern Utah, and it is famous for its unique geological formations: the ground in the park is mostly composed of sandstone, and the intense winds that carry sand sculpted the rocks over the years, resulting in some unique shapes. You can see many balanced rocks, rock arches, columns and monoliths, resulting in lots and lots of visitors to the park. Because of that during the middle of the year you actually need to reserve a slot, given that the park (wisely) limits the number of daily visitors.

Another good piece of advice to anybody visiting the park, especially in the middle of the year, is that it is very very hot. Being a desert, it has lots of sunshine and not much shade, and you lose water very fast (my water bottle was emptied in no time). That's compensated for some amazing vistas, and being able to see how nature thrives even in these conditions.

Jenn and I saw the two main attractions of the park: the double arch and the delicate arch. The first is a very interesting rock formation, where two huge rock arches converge. One cool thing about this particular arch is that it offers shade and places to sit on the rock, so it gives a great respite from the sunshine (and many tourists take advantage of that). The delicate arch is the most famous, and in fact it is in the Utah's license plate, however it's harder to reach: you need to take one of two trails to get close to it. Walking uphill under the sun required more stamina than I imagined: I'm used to the trails in Washington, where you can count on the shade. Here there was no respite, but the view of such a beautiful formation compensated for that.

I love pretty much all National Parks, but this one is particularly cool for one reason: I had seen pictures of its arches many times before, so visiting it allowed me to add one more item in my list of wonders of the world that I saw with my own eyes. With that, I can only recommend it to everybody.















Location: Arches National Park, Utah, USA

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