Arches: Day 1

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The first stop in the park is Park Avenue trail. It is a 2 mile (roundtrip, not a loop) hike through tall rocks that resemble a city skyline, hence the name. You can also have someone pick you up at the other end of the trail if you don't want to hike 2 miles.
If you don't want to hike, beautiful views of the park avenue rocks are also visible from the Courthouse Towers viewpoint, which was our next stop. 

The Balanced Rock was our next stop. You can walk all around the rock at the bottom and get a sense of how huge it is and wonder how it is still up there. All the time that I was there I kept thinking that one day it's going to fall and hopefully it won't be during the day time.
While on one side you can see all these rocks as you go in the park, on the other side you can also see beautiful snow-capped mountains. The next stop is Fiery Furnace viewpoint, which was rather disappointing. I had seen some really nice pictures of fiery furnace, but the viewpoint was too close and it didn't look as great as I thought it would. Fiery furnace consists of many rock formations like needles that are close to each other. There are no marked trails, so the only hiking option is guided tours with official rangers. As you can imagine these tours get booked a few days in advance. We skipped this hike mainly because we had hiked quite a bit on day 1 and had to do more that evening. This is a moderately strenuous hike, only 2 miles, but 3 hours long.







Next we hiked to Sand Dune arch and Broken arch, which was an easy 1.5 mile hike. I loved the sand dune arch because of its colors, but the winds were strong and the sand was in our shoes and eyes.
Next we drove back to Delicate arch viewpoint. The hike to the view point itself is 0.5 miles and the views are worth it. But if you want to stand underneath the arch itself (which you should do!) then you have to hike 1.5 miles (one way) to the arch.

The hike to the arch is strenuous. There is an elevation gain of 480 feet. When you get closer to the arch you will see this smaller arch that you can climb to and see the main arch through it.
The arch looks most beautiful at sunset and photographers line up to take the best shot. We went on a weekday and were lucky that it wasn't as crowded as we thought it would be.
The colors of the arch change as the sun sets.
The rest of the sky looks equally beautiful. The hike back is much easier. We reached the arch a couple of hours before sunset to grab a good spot. This also gave us some time to rest before heading back and that made a big difference. All in all totally worth it. If you are not up for much hiking, make sure that you take a break in the afternoon and rest for a while before you climb up to the arch in the evening.

Day 1: Successful!!!




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