Nestled next to Moab, Utah lies a park which is composed of beautiful rock structures including over 2,000 arches. Even typing this is hard to believe that many arches can be confined to such a relatively tiny  area next to the Colorado River. After off roading a nearby trail, my friend and I decided to spend a portion of the afternoon exploring Arches National Park. With so many incredible landscapes surrounding the area, this national park is nothing short of spectacular with it’s natural stone carvings that are larger than life. No wonder so many movies are set with this backdrop. In the photo above you can just make out the South Window Arch near the horizon just right of center. The others are obscured from this point of view. Viewing the park from this vantage point can only be done with some type of off road activity such as hiking, biking, or four wheeling which is what we were doing.

Having spent a good portion of the day in Utah’s back country, I couldn’t imagine seeing anything here that was more impressive. Some of these famous arches that are spread across many books, magazines, and even movies in person was amazing. Being later in the afternoon I was growing tired and was having difficulty in gathering much in the way of energy to really enjoy these sights but it didn’t take long for that to pass once the arches became visible. I don’t believe they were any better than the scenery passed earlier during the day while navigating the Top of the World off road trail (which I’ll be writing about in a future post) but they were a great compliment and equally amazing as those beautiful sights.

To be able to walk right up to several natural sandstone arches, and in several case underneath them, really brought them to life. Their enormity is not easy to grasp from many of the photos I’ve looked at. Standing inside of a few arches allows you to see the details of this sandstone rock and the beautiful patterns carved into them. You just want to reach out and touch it but the arches are just too tall for that so trying to settle for a photograph or two will have to do. Yes, while underneath one of these stone structures you begin to wonder how they can even support the stone overhead and question how much longer will it continue to stand. Will this moment be the one which you find large stones dropping over top? And then you recall these have been standing like this for a very long time and it is not likely they will collapse while you’re underneath.

I took a few moments while standing underneath the North Window Arch to reflect on where I was and what I’ve been fortunate to do and see in the beautiful area. It was peaceful and very humbling to think how fortunate my friend and I were to be able to spend time on such a great adventure creating stories we’ll be able to share for the rest of our lives. Often I feel a sadness fall over me during moments like this because it means the adventure is coming to an end. Not on this day as the realization there were several trails yet to come although I was unsure how they could get any better than what was already explored.

After visiting Arches I watched a few movies filmed in the area and was amazed at the familiar scenery I had just visited in person. That’s one of the fun pieces of traveling to certain areas. Whenever you see them in a TV show, movie, or on the news you can recall your person experiences in that exact spot and what the people were like and how the surrounding areas looked and any particular smells or sounds you may have experienced.  You begin to realize what so many people are seeing on the screen is such a small portion, and often an inaccurate representation, of that place.

There were numerous arches all with their own unique appearance making each one worth viewing but the most impressive arch, for me, was Double Arch. I’ll have a full post on that one arch coming up.