Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah.  The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 miles  north of Moab.  More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches are located in the park, including the well-known Delicate Arch, as well as a variety of unique geological resources and formations. The park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world.  (Source: Wikipedia)

Established: November 12, 1971

Size: 76,679 Acres

Rank: 43

# Visitors in 2018: 1.6 million

(May 2013)  I first visited Arches in May 2013 during a 9-day roadtrip through Utah and northern Arizona.  I went with a fellow photographer who I met at an RMSP workshop in Glacier National Park the previous summer.  My friend lives in Utah and organized the trip where we visited 4 National Parks, 3 State parks and slot canyons in Page, AZ.  Arches was our first stop and as such, I was like a kid in a candy store.  We were stopping every few minutes to hop out of the car to take photographs of the ever changing shapes, colors and textures of the rock formations.  Arches contains one of the largest concentrations of natural sandstone arches in the world, so imagine my dilemma.  Since we only had a day and a half at Arches, we only visited the first half of the park. We did pack in a lot, however.  We concentrated our hikes to the Windows Area and Delicate Arch.  The trip highlight for me was the 3.0 mile roundtrip hike up Delicate Arch at sunset.  We knew that we would be hiking back in the dark, so we were ready with our headlamps, plenty of water and snacks.  It was all worth it!!  On the beginning of the trail, we saw the Rock Art Panel (petroglyphs dating from A. D. 1540).  Further along the trail, the only trail markings were rock cairns to guide us along the open slickrock surfaces.

Here are highlights from the Windows area and a beautiful sunrise of the Great Wall near Courthouse Towers.

(April 2016) I visited Arches again; this time with my boyfriend who is also a photographer.  He had never been, so I guided him to areas in the park where I had not been or that I thought were particular highlights.  We stopped at Arches during our 6300 mile road trip to the West Coast. The primary purpose for the trip was to visit a new grandson in Portland, but since we are both retired, we decided to take the long way there and back.  Even with that, we only allocated a couple of days to Arches.  The weather was a bit stormy during our time there; we even got caught in a hailstorm on our hike to Landscape Arch.  With the unpredictability of the weather, we did not risk a hike up to Delicate Arch, much to my boyfriend’s disappointment.  I really enjoyed seeing new areas of the park.  I also enjoyed seeing some areas for a second time.  The weather, and therefore the lighting was different and I think my photography skills had improved since my last visit.