DAY 16 – Moab (0 miles driven, 8.00 miles walked)
Learning from our one hour wait in the queue yesterday afternoon we set off early in order to make our 9am timeslot. Of course today the queue was only five minutes or so and we got through half an hour early! Yesterday apparently lots of people were arriving without reservations. Not sure how they managed to miss all the signs while queuing including the giant dot matrix screen…
Superficially many parks look the same.
- High sided canyons ✅
- Red and cream stripy rocks ✅
- Free standing formations ✅
Presumably this is because they are all, geologically speaking, in the same range. However, even within these parameters there are some great variations such as the hoodoos at Bryce.
Arches, where we are today, is another great example with its numerous arches carved from the rock by years of erosion. What isn’t clear, to me at any rate, is why they have formed here but not in the other seemingly similar parks.
I could be acused of latestism here (being swayed by what you saw latest) and of being a hypocrite after telling Helen off for having a favourite park but I think Arches may well be my favourite so far. It has so much going for it: slot canyons! Vegetation! Smells! Stacks! Arches!
It’s almost like a taster park where you get to experience something of everything found spread across all the Western States parks.
The sad thing about Arches National Park is that so much of it has a (relatively) short shelf life. Take the Balanced Rock and Landscape Arch shown below, both are some day going to collapse as erosion continues to do its thing. Right now there is a warning in place for thunderstorms and flooding which will eat away a little bit more. Hopefully, they will remain for a long time to come for more to enjoy.
