With more than 2000 naturally formed stone arches; this park is a unique experience. No doubt Delicate Arch is beautiful but every other arch in this park has something special. We started our trip from Salt Lake City and it was a 2 days trip.
Road drive from SLC: Around 3:40 Hours
Place we stayed: The Virginian Motel
This place is so good. We had small kitchen as well in our room. Very clean place and super friendly owner. Location is also perfect. 5 miles away from Arches Park so very convenient and right in the middle of market place so everything is close by.
If you are checking in after 9:30 please contact the property before and they will arrange something for you.
Day 1 Itinerary
We started from SLC around 10:00 AM and we reached Arches park around 1:30 PM. We grabbed park maps and some information on hikes we wanted to do from the Visitor center and started sightseeing around 2:00 PM.
Points we covered:
- La Sal Mountain
- Courthouse Towers viewpoint
- Petrified Dunes Viewpoint
- Balanced Rock
- Garden of Eden
- Double Arch
- Windows section and Turret Arch
- Panorama point
- Delicate Arch
- Delicate Arch viewpoints
If you don’t want to hike Delicate arch; these upper and lower viewpoints gives the best views and photo opportunity.
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We ended our first day here. And headed straight to Moab city to get dinner. We had best Mexican food in El Charro Mexican Grill. It was so good!!!
We came back to Arches at midnight to stargaze and stopped at Balanced Rock. Even though it was cloudy, we did see some stars and it was still breathtaking.
Day 2 Itinerary
Today we started our day around 8:30 in the morning. And we headed straight to Devils garden trailhead. For primitive trail it is the starting point. It is a very difficult trail and it’s a 7.2 miles round trip. We were short on time as wanted to head back to Salt Lake City, so we did not do the complete trail loop. Although we did below arches.
- Landscape Arch
- Partition Arch
- Navajo Arch
- Double O Arch
To complete all these arches, we spent 3 to 4 hours.
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Here we concluded our trip.
Important Notes to plan your trip:
- First decide which all arches you want to do and how difficult it is to hike. I would suggest not to plan more than one difficult hike in a day.
- If you are planning to camp, then book your campsite well in advance.
- During summer it is often crowded so expect traffic jams, also there is limited parking place for these attractions. So, start your day early.
- Carry plenty of water and snacks with you. There are two water refill stations in the park. One at Visitor center and other at Devils garden trailhead.
- Its best to do hike before 10:00 AM or after 5:00 PM because of the sun exposure.
- Carry torch and wear comfortable footware.
- If you want to do Fiery Furnace trail, please book early as only morning slots can be booked online and it gets sold out fast.
- Early summer and fall are the best time to visit Arches national park.
- Don’t miss stargazing at Arches. ???? Some of the best spots to stargaze are:
- Windows section
- Garden of Eden Viewpoint
- Balanced Rock
- Turret Arch