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Visit Arches National Park, near Moab, in that natural wonder like Utah is, to discover –through trails and paths more or less hard, but always extremely suggestive – over 2000 natural arches. Added to the 1500 ones outside the park they make this area the one with the major concentration in the world.

Try to imagine wonderful red brownstone arches shaped over time by water, ice, climate changes and by a non-stop salt underground movement who caused their creation and destruction over hundreds of thousands years (and it keeps going on doing it).

“On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it”

(Jules Renard)

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: what to see and what to do

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: how to arrive and what to see

Arches National Park entrance is located on Hwy 191, about 8km far from Moab, and 5km far from the Scenic ByWay 128, another wonderful scenic road of Utah skirting the Colorado River flow and allowing to admire further rocky formations and natural arches.

It is a National Park relatively “small” – about 305 square meters – so it can be easily visited in one day thanks to the Arches Scenic Drive, a convenient asphalted road which leaving from the Visitor Center allows to go through the whole park and reach extremely easily the several viewpoints and trails in order to admire the most suggestive arches.

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Arches Scenic Drive, “Park Avenue”

Among them all it is impossible not to mention the Delicate Arch – so famous and recognizable that today it is used as background of the plates of Utah State – and the Landscape Arch – up today considered the longest natural arch in the world.

Here you can download the detailed map of Arches NP with all trails and overlooks, the same one you will be given at the entrance.

In the park there are no refreshment points, only toilets. So, if you are going to spend the whole day inside it, get prepared with a packed lunch, abundant water and solar cream, above all in Summer.

Admission is included in the National Park Pass. Otherwise, $30 fee each car.

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Delicate Arch

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: natural arches on the Scenic ByWay 128

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: trails not to miss

• Park Avenue – 1.6km easy trail leading to the flat bottom of the canyon with the same name; it was named Park Avenue after its rocky walls with their elaborated spires which recalls the buildings of the Park Ave in Manhattan.
• Balanced Rock – a simple loop of 0.5km around one of the most famous attractions of the park, the Balanced Rock.
• Windows – a 1.6km loop. 1km to reach South Windows and Turret Arch, about 0.6km more to reach North Windows.
• Double Arch – a simple sand trail of 1.2km which take to one of the most beautiful formations of the park.
• Delicate Arch – a sloping path, average difficulty, about 5km to reach the big attraction of the park – the Delicate Arch. At the beginning of the trail it is possible to visit the old and authentic Wolfe Ranch, where John Wesley Wolfe – veteran of the Civil War – lived together with his son Fred for over 20 years at the end of the 1800s, when Arches NP was still a wild land, unknown to the most.
• Delicate Arch Belvedere – who can’t or doesn’t want to go along the long trail for Delicate Arch, can admire it from far anyway from two viewpoints easily accessible: the Upper and the Lower one.

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Balanced Rock

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Park Avenue Canyon

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Windows

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Double Arch

What to see in Moab, Utah: visit Arches National Park, Delicate Arch

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Wolfe Ranch

Area in the north of the park, Devil’s Garden:

• Landscape Arch – easy trail of 2km to reach the suggestive Landscape Arch which is considered the longest natural arch in the world – 91 meters.
• Doubles O Arch – one among the most difficult trails of the park – 6,8km of rocky path with slopes.
• Primitive Loop – other hard trail – 3,5km, in many traits on slipping smooth rock.
• Tower Arch – trail moderately difficult in the remote section of Klondike Bluffs – 5,5km of trail between sand and altitude changes.

What to see in Moab, Utah: Landscape Arch, Arches NP

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: Double O Arch

Visit Arches National Park, Utah: where to sleep

In the park there are no buildings where to stay or eat but the Devil’s Garden Campground. Open all over the year, it offers 52 camping areas for tent and caravans with centralized toilets.

What to see in Moab, Utah: a walk on the Main Street

The reference area to stay overnight and get supplies is the near Moab, about 8km far.

Please, find here further info about what to do in the town, where to sleep and eat, about other experiences and attractions in the neighborhoods