Arches National Park

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Arches happened to be one of our first stops on our Honeymoon and it REALLY got us in the mood for a desert road trip! It’s a beautiful park surrounded by an amazing town.

We drove into the town of Moab the night prior after flying in from Denver. It is a long drive, but since flights were SO cheap into Denver it was the most ideal starting point. Moab is a BUSTLING tourist town, but ALL mom and pop/one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants. There’s maybe one or two chain fast food spots. We ate dinner at the Moab Brewery, stocked up on groceries at the store next door, and stayed at the Quality Suites one block up. This was ALL within walking distance (three minutes tops), however, it was a bit of a walk to get down into the city, maybe 10 blocks - but since the weather was nice we walked to see some shops. We did have a car but preferred to not be in the car and walk.

Since we got married on a Friday, that made our first park day a Sunday - which I NEVER recommend. Only do this if you WAKE UP VERY EARLY. We were at the park by 8:20, waiting in the car line for about an hour and the park was fully closed at 9:30 due to capacity, the first week of May. As soon as we entered the park we took everyone’s advice and did our main hike first - The Delicate Arch.

This IS a harder trail since it’s just straight up, but it also has a lot of ledges and cliffs. However, very unathletic me did fine with about two breaks. Pack PLENTY of water as it’s pure sun and apply sunscreen. A LOT.

Our loose itinerary was Courthouse Towers, Panorama Point, Balanced Rock, Double Arch Trail, and The Windows Loop. However, the best thing we found accidentally was this small slot canyon and arch right after Balanced rock. Part of a much longer hike, within the first .2 mi on the right you’ll see VERY tall rocks and you can walk right into their slot. Walk into the slots for a fun slot experience and you’ll be dumped into an orange sand oasis with smooth rocks, flat walls, and an arch! This is called Sand Dune Arch or Hidden Arch.

Unlike our other trips we did not drive around this park at night to look for wildlife, instead, we walked around the town because it was just that interesting and fun. We really felt like we saw the “whole” park by about 3pm and if we did another longer hike we could have, but we did exit the park for dinner and come back for sunset.