We were amazed by the scenery when we got to Arches National Park! We had been seeing some red rock on the drive the day before, but these rock formations and colors just seemed to pop out of nowhere. They were so huge!
Since Peanut was in the 4th grade last year we were able to get her an "Every Kid in a Park" pass and get in for free. Thankfully we had seen that you had to have reservations to get in and we got an 8am to try to beat the heat.
We could not get over how beautiful everything was!
Balancing rock. It doesn't look very big in this picture but it was huge as well.
I was thinking we would go for one of the easy 1 mile hikes, but T wanted to go for the 3 miler so we put on our sunscreen and headed out.
The little ones did pretty well, but they did have to have piggy back rides every now and then.
We found several baby bearded dragons! The girls wanted to bring this one home to live with Buddy. :)
I'm so glad we went early because it was getting really hot already. We stopped for a little break in the shade whenever we could find it.
We aren't a hiking family so to do a cold turkey 3 mile hike in the heat was a stretch! Plus we realized later the elevation probably had something to do with everyone's exhaustion. We were at 5,000 feet and the hike had an elevation change of 400 feet!
Another shade break!
This hill behind us was tough. Sheer rock with a good upward climb, and getting to the top wasn't even the end!
Once we got to the top we curved around and hiked in a few trees for a bit before doing the last stretch. Peanut looks so funny here. So exhausted.
People kept telling us, "You're almost there! It narrows and then you're there!"
Made it! This was the destination. The "Delicate Arch".
We climbed over the rock Lou is standing on above and I was shocked that they let people up here! It was smooth slanting rock that dives off into a cliff. No railings, no guides, just a bowl shaped cliff. It was actually quite terrifying. Noni accidentally dropped her water bottle and there was no rescuing it. It just rolled right on down. We didn't even hear it hit the bottom. The younger ones wanted to get out of there after that and I was not arguing. Noni and I were gripping their hands so tight. One slip of the foot and you would be gone.
We paused for a couple more pictures once we were away from the most dangerous part.
T and the big girls were brave. They went over to the other side to wait in line to take a picture with the arch. He is that little green dot on the left.
Here are the shots he got.
This spot was on the way back down.
We got to wait and take a breather in the shade while they got their pictures.
We had been telling the girls, "The way down will be so much easier!" and it definitely was. We made it down in a third of the time it took us to go up and didn't have to stop at all.
They had these cool petroglyphs on a side trail! Lou was done with this nonsense at this point. Haha.
Whew! That was exhausting, but also an amazing experience! Such a beautiful place!!
Oh and funny story...on the way out of Moab we passed a beautiful arch not even 100 yards off the highway that people were hiking up to in minutes to get pictures with. Lol. If we ever go back we'll just do that one! :P
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