We visited Arches on May 14, 2021. The Lady had signed up to get their tweets, so she knew that park capacity was being surpassed daily. They were closing the park to additional visitors at 11am. Or earlier. The park was re-opening in the late afternoon when more visitors could be accommodated in this “small” park.
Plus, we knew that popular spots would run out of parking fast. So we spent the night in Moab, and then got up at 6a to arrive at the park at 7:30a.
We had to wait in line for 15 minutes to get into the park; they had both lanes open to get the paying visitors into the park. We, of course, had our Golden Eagle passports, so we were in without paying the $30 per car. We elected to drive straight to the iconic Delicate Arch first … and we got there with plenty of parking available. After that picture was captured, we proceeded to drive through the rest of the park at our leisure, stopping at every designated wide spot in the road to take pictures.
The park’s website said we could spend 10 minutes at every Viewpoint, and finish the park’s paved roads in 4-1/2 hours. We beat that time, and felt that we had been there, done that.
Here is what we saw.
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MowryJournal.com: Arches National Park, 2014
National Park Service: Arches National Park
Beautiful! Utah has plenty of National Parks that are well worth the visit! Thank you for sharing!
Living here in Utah, I cannot say how many times I have visited Arches. While in college, my buddies and I would camp there every spring for 4 years plus numerous other trips – winter, spring, fall, summer – not the best idea.
Every visit was a new discovery. My latest visit was in February 2018, and again more new discoveries and places. I hope that during your whirlwind tour you found something to peak your interest to return. The wonders of the red rock desert grows over time.
We loved our time in Utah, Tim, and plan to return. Next time, I intend to do 2 things differently. 1) get an app, GPS-enabled, that does a guided tour as you drive through the park. We missed doing that for this trip, and that was to our detriment. 2) find a photo tour that will help me get a “perfect” shot or 3 when we visit the park.
You are absolutely correct: you cannot visit this park and do it justice in 1 day! Deeper exploration is called for.