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Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, contains over 2000 natural arches and bridges, and thousands of weird, wonderful rock formations. This was my favorite of all the parks we visited -- we took about a million pictures!
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We hiked the Devil's Garden.
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Landscape Arch has one of the longest spans in the world. This arch is nearing the end of its life; they expect it to collapse within the next century or two.
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Me sitting in an arch.
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A longer shot of the same arch; it's actually two arches.
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Navajo Arch.
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Looking over the Devil's Playground.
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More arches....
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...and more. (If you look close, you'll see that there's a person in the bottom arch; these formations are huge!)
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Arches everywhere!
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The Devil's Playground was spectacular.
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We got off the beaten trail and took the "strenuous" hike back -- it wasn't too strenuous, mostly just hot!
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We took a few rest stops.
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These formations were just breathtaking. (That's me on the rock.)
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This was the hardest part of the trail. You can't see it, but there's a pool (er, small lake) at the bottom of this chute. Somehow I managed NOT to fall in.
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Right in the middle of this picture is Delicate Arch, the most famous arch in the world. It's on the Utah license plate, and on the 2002 National Parks Pass. We didn't hike up to it because we'd already done 7 miles in the morning and had another 3 miles planned for the afternoon. We'll do it next time!
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This is Balanced Rock.
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In the late afternoon, we went on a ranger hike through the Fiery Furnace.
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The Fiery Furnace is a bunch of rocks that look like smokestacks.
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The trail winds down between these columns.
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It was a challenging hike, but really fun.
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This is Skull Arch.
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After dinner we watched the most amazing sunset over the Devil's Garden. There was a thunderstorm off to the right with big lightening bolts.
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This is the Fiery Furnace from a distance. It looks so small from here!
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Here's our little motorhome!
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This rock formation is called The Three Gossips.
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