Arches National Park, my last Pinmapple post

The Arches National Park is one of the Utah Mighty 5 national parks and was the one that was highly anticipated during my recent mid west America trip. The park is famous for its geological formations, there are over 2000, including the longest arch in America which we shall see in a minute.
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Arches is at just outside a town called Moab in Utah, connected by the Highway 191, which is the road at the top in the image below. The entrance to the Arches National Park is via the little slip road entrance on the left-hand side. You can see there's a queue of cars lining up towards the entrance booth, I reckon we were queuing for about half an hour to get in, and am so glad we're not here during the peak season. After passing the entrance booth, we zig zag up the roads to the park and the arches.
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Devil's Garden

The furthest vehicles can go in the Arches is an area called the Devils Garden, that's where I went first. There's a big car park here and a series of hikes, the further you go the more difficulty the hike gets. They will all lead you to different arches. There'd be no point of hiking if there was nothing to see!!

We decided to do the 3km hike to see the Landscape Arch. Probably not the wisest decision at noon time, but then it's not like I can easily rock up to visit again whenever I want.

The start of the trail is very welcoming, massive rocks on either side leading to the unknown.

The first arch I saw is the Tunnel Arch. The arches here are of different sizes and shape, likely due to its age, geology, position etc. The opening here is relatively small, hence the name the Tunnel.
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A little further on is the Pine Tree Arch. You can walk right up to the arch but it was really hot and I couldn't be bothered. I actually waited ages to get this picture because there was another couple here first and they were taking photos of one another. In order to get rid of them As a good citizen and friendly tourist, I offered to take some photos of the two of them. They were very pleased with my help and left afterwards. Now I had the whole arch to myself😄
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It's not fun hiking under the sun at noon, and especially when you're not well prepared with sun lotion and hat. The less than 1 mile walk to the Landscape Arch took me a good half an hour. I was so relieved when I finally reached it, and it was totally worth it.
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And even more so when I learnt about how it was formed. At 306ft wide, the Landscape Arch is the widest in the US and the 4th widest in the world. The information board will give you the background on how this came abou. Basically, in 1991, 180 tons of rocks at the base suddenly crumbled leaving this long thin arch. Nature can be fragile as well as strong. Who knows when and what it decides to do.

On the way back from the Landscape Arch, I passed by the Skyline Arch. It seems like one can climb very near to the base, but I really didn't have the energy for it.
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Sand Dune

After lunch and a rest, we moved to the next part of the park, the Sand Dune Arch. But first of all we had to go through a very narrow gorge which is only wide enough for one person to pass through. Most of the opening is blocked by a massive rock where I'm standing on, waving to the rest of my group who were coming through.

As you can see, the sun is still shining brightly overhead and the gorge has widened up after the initial entrance. Most of the landscape I've seen so far today are arches or massive rocks. The Sand Dune is totally different, hidden away waiting to be explored. For a start, it's call the Sand Dune because the areas is all covered in sand.
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As I venture further in, there are lots of massive sandstone rocks, like a mini playground. It was quite surreal getting so close to these rock formations, and seeing some of them kissing one another. And, they're massive. The Sand Dune is definitely my favourite area in the Arches.
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The Windows Section

Moving further down outwards towards the park entrance, the next area I stopped at is called The Windows Section. There are two arches here called the North Window and South Window, and apparently is best viewed by walking a mile to it. It was starting to rain now and I didn't fancy walking, we still had a few more stops to go. I quickly grabbed a photo of these two arches from the car park. And you can see, due to my laziness, the windows aren't very clear.
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The Double Arch is on the other side of the car park, I was quite determined to walk the short distance for this even though the rest of my group weren't keen. I had to get fairly near to see the double arch as they aren't parallel to one another like a double rainbow. It's like a fork where the two arches stems out from the same foundation. I'm glad I made the effort to go see this.
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Other features

The Balance Rock isn't an arch, but it is thought it might used to be one. I guess that's what might happen with Landscape Arch in the future. Once the arch collapses, only the sides are left. In this case at Balance Rock, what's left is very remarkable, like a pointy head balancing on a body.
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I couldn't do a post about the Arches without mentioning the Delicate Arch even though all I have is a zoomed in blurry picture of it. The Delicate Arch is the most famous arch here, so famous that it's on all Utah licence plates. There are a short half mile walk to a viewpoint which gets you nearer to see the Delicate Arch, I think that what those people are doing. And if you want to get to the base of it, it's a 3 mile difficult trail. The half mile walk is the near desert condition was even a little too much for after after this morning's walk, I'll have to settle with this zoomed in view.
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Through the window

Time to leave the Arches National Park as it's starting to rain. I managed to take a few photos from inside the vehicle as we are leaving.

And the raindrops hitting against the window, a contrast to earlier on
The is the Courthouse, I think it does look rather serious

And here we are zig zagging down the road to leave the Arches. End of a lovely day, and end of a memorable chapter. This is my last ever post on Pinmapple, the best ever community on Hive. Goodbye Pinmapple. I will miss you.
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You can checkout all my travel post on the Pinmapple here or click on Mr Pinmapple below



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Yay beautiful Utah. Arches is great. I will have to go to Sand Dune Arch. I have not been there. Delicate arch is great, it is a hard hike.

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Did you go to the Delicate Arch? It seemed like quite strenuous hike, especially in the hot weather. I'd have to be well prepared for that, which I wasn't on the day, sadly.

The Sand Dune was easy peast, described as family friendly including kids 😉

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Yes! Here is a picture of me and @jarvie. And here is my post about it.
https://peakd.com/hive-163772/@sjarvie5/share-our-world-delicate-arch-hike

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That's so impressive, especially the left side, no wonder it's called the Delicate Arch. So the little dots of people I got on my photo are going up the slide rock? Now I understand why it's a difficult hike. And the ledge 😬

Thanks for showing me again, I forgot I'd seen this post before

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The sand dunes look really cool! I am currently working on getting a USA visa, if all goes well,this place is definitely on my list 😊. I am really sad pinmapple will no longer active. I hope despite the map service isn't there anymore, the community will still be around.

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I hope you will get your visa. Have you planned where else you want to go yet? Just planning is great fun and builds up to the excitement.

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I definitely have, I am mainly going to be visiting North Texas but I'd love to sneak in trips to Colorado & Utah too.

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I saw this at Denver station, and quite fancy taking the Amtrak myself. Salt Lake City to Denver would be cool for your travel. I was speaking to some locals and they said they the section between Glenwood Springs to Denver is beautiful
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ooh, I remember my partner showed me something similar, it was a train journey with steam train but mostly around Colorado & it was beautiful. Didn't know they also do long distances like that, thanks for the recommendation, will be adding them into my itinerary 😁

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You've got a great place for photography

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Definitely, even my shitty photography skills doesn't matter when the landscape is stunning

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What a amazing view! Breathtaking... This is why Nature is the best artist that we can find! The more close view that I've seen live is in Tenerife Island. Some day I'll make a post about it!

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Tenerife has some amazing landscape as well. I only got to see a little bit when I was there the other year

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Nether-less, the Arches National Park is pretty much impressive! I would have no doubt of witch one to choose if I have the chance of that :)

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Going out in style, as they say. While the words "last Pinmapple post" feel sad af, gotta say this place is pretty majestic. Thank you for a little vicarious traveling.

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That looks incredible. I'll definitely be adding it to my list of places to visit.

That was smart to take photos of the couple to speed them along. Good thinking. 👍

So where're we going to post our travel posts in the future?

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Such a cool place! Had no idea arches could be the motto for a national park; and the colours seem nice as well. Thanks for sharing! !BEER

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It's kinda crazy how many arches are concentrated in that area

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Absolutely. Another one to put on my looooooong natural parks list. :)

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I love seeing pictures of these natural works of art. They seem so out of this world. Amazing!

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And even so more when you're standing right in front of very near to it

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Absolutely beautiful! My buddy went to Moab a couple years ago and he is going again next year. He does the rock crawling stuff with his jeep.

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Loads of rocks for his jeep to crawl, and for him to climb if he wishes!! I imagine one can easily get get lost, both physically and psychologically there, all the landscape is so amazingly out of the world

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I think they have special crews for that. I know there are businesses that make some good money recovering people when they get a little too crazy in their 4WD!

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For some reason, I always found Utah a lot more impressing in terms of rock formations than the famous Grand Canyon. I don't know to say why but as soon as I found out about Utah this got on my first place of the bucket list I have and never been overtaken.

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The Utah Mighty Five lives up to it's reputation, at least the 4 I've visited does. It has certainly exceeded my expectations

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Arches is so amazing. If the sun doesn't kill you first. Did you get to see the petroglyphs?

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If the sun doesn't kill you first

It nearly did, I hadn't expected it to be so hot.

Unfortunately I didn't catch the petroglyphs, was more focused on the arches, and didn't even have enough time to see all of them

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I was there in late September (2017) and it was still in the 80s (F), couldn't imagine being there in the warmer months.

Ha, I don't think there is enough time to see them all. I spent a week in Moab divided between Arches and Canyonlands and don't even feel like I even scratched the surface. I think the petroglyphs were off of the Delicate Arch trail anyways.

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I would love to visit Arches National Park!!!
It's so different from what I'm used to seeing.
Here in Portugal, we don't have that type of landscape.
It would be a dream to visit something like this in the USA. Let's see what the future holds for me.
Thank you for sharing! Hug from Portugal 🇵🇹

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The arches and couple of the other national parks I went to certainly have very unique landscape and natural features, definitely worth a visit if you can make it

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Your Arches National Park post is stunning! Your photos and descriptions beautifully capture its magic. Thank you for sharing this inspiring journey. Excited to see where you explore next!

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There be no snow!!! what amazing structures nature has created over time, sometimes it is just jaw dropping.

Where oh where will we see you post now?

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We'd move further south to the Arches, pretty crazy to that there was so much snow just a couple of days ago, and now we're in desert like environment

Waiting for the @Worldmappin to start now

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Nice one, sounds like a great road trip

have also just subscribed from your link cheers

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