Arches National Park Hikes

Introduction.

Arches National Park is a wonderland of colors, land forms, and textures. The park contains over 2,000 natural stone arches, hundreds of soaring pinnacles, and many giant balanced rocks. Approximately 1,300,000 people visit Arches National Park each year. Your visiting options include touring along the 18 mile scenic road, backpacking, biking, camping, rock climbing, and hiking.

There are also a number of Ranger led tours, though you will have to check the schedules for these options. You can spend a short time by exploring the scenic drive and many easily accessible viewpoints, or you can spend days hiking to spectacular rock formations.

General logistics information.

Arches National Park is located about 5 miles north of Moab, Utah, which is where you will find lodging and restaurant options. There are no food, gas, lodging, or provision options available within the park. While the park is officially open 24 hours a day, the Visitor Center hours of operation vary by season.

Unfortunately, due to our driving schedule, we only had 1 day to spend visiting Arches, at least on this first pass. This post will review the highlights of our visit and our suggestions for some enjoyable Arches National Park hikes. Of course, if you have more time there is much more to explore in the park. However, if you only have a limited time as we did, the guidance below will give you a taste of the park and a close up view of a few of the incredible arches.

Arches National Park Hikes.

• As always, we believe it is a must to stop at the Visitor’s Center. Check out the gift shop, get questions answered from one of the rangers, learn about park activities, and firm up your plans for your visit.
• Regarding Arches National Park hikes, our plan was to take a few selected hikes to certain destinations and also enjoy many of the viewpoints along the scenic drive.
• Along the drive, be sure to spot The Three Gossips, which looked more like the Three Wisemen to me.
• We started with a hike to the Upper Delicate Arch viewpoint. We decided that we did not have the time to make the full 3 mile hike to Delicate Arch, but this .5 mile hike would give us a reasonably good look at this very famous arch.

• Along this trial you do a bit of climbing and get some great scenery views, before reaching a point where you have an unobstructed view of Delicate Arch.

• Our next major hiking event was in the Devils Garden section, after driving through the Fiery Furnace section.
• This Arches National Park hike took us to Landscape Arch.
• This is a seemingly delicate arch that spans over 300 feet across, which is the longest arch in the park.



• This was a relatively flat hike of approximately 1.5 miles, and it turned out that we were almost in a windstorm on the return hike. Therefore, make sure you are prepared and maybe have another layer of upper body clothes with you.

• Our last Arches National Park hike was planned for Double Arch.
• On the drive back from the Devils Garden section to the Windows section, we stopped at the Fiery Furnace Viewpoint for some photo opportunities.
• Then we made our way to Double Arch and the .5 mile hike to the base of the arch.
• This is a really intricate arch and you should make sure to get right underneath the arch and look up for a great view of the rock structure.



• When leaving the area of Double Arch, you must make a stop to view and take some pictures of Balanced Rock.
• As our time for our visit was running out, we made just one more short stop for viewing of Courthouse Towers, a very impressive rock formation.

• With a very long drive ahead of us, this was all the time we were able to spend on Arches National Park hikes. This park is definitely worth a visit, and I hope to get back there in the future to see more of the park and the sights.