Arches & Canyonlands National Parks
Arches and Canyonlands don’t have to be visited together. But they are do close to one another, how could you possible come to the Moab area without seeing both?
At the same time, they couldn’t be more different from an accessibilty standpoint. Arches is basically an attraction just outside of the town. You drive in one way — right off the freeway — up one road to the end and back. There’s plenty to do and see, and it intermingles well with the other outdoor activities thriving in and around Moab.
Canyonlands is much more difficult to access, especially if you want to visit more than one part of the Park. But hitting up one or two primary spots is well worth the journey.
We’re almost illness free by this part of the trip. But we still made the decision to do a couple nights in a hotel with a kitchen to make sure strength is fully restored. We ended up foregoing a great campsite at Devil’s Garden.
We did drive the length of the Arches to make that decision, so we got a preview of what to expect in the coming days — including the no-hike-required view of Delicate Arch, a peak at Balanced Rocked, and a look at The Windows.
The big goal for Arches was hiking Fiery Furnace. We’d gotten the permit (reserved online seven days out) in advance and had to watch a video at the Visitor Center to collect it. Fiery Furnace is not a straight forward hike, it’s more like dropping a person inside a pinball game and letting them bounce around. GPS doesn’t really work amongst the rock formations, but a general sense of direction can keep you from getting too lost. Just try not to be in a hurry.
Inside Fiery Furnace we logged 4.5 miles, followed by another 3.5 miles at Delicate Arch. You really can walk right up to the arch, but if you do you’re sort of ruining hundreds of people’s photos. We left the park for lunch, and headed back in the evening, taking a short hike to The Windows.
The next day, we put Arches in our rearview and headed to Canyonlands. The most accessible part of Canyonlands is Island in the Sky — a 40 minute drive from Moab. We stopped at the visitor center and did the standard loop to get some amazing vistas. We checked out Mesa Arch, Green River Overview, Grandview Point, all as beautiful as the previous.
We’d be back to Canyonlands, but for the moment we returned to a campground in Moab and prepared for a different adventure.
We took a half day (four hour) rafting trip down the Colorado River with Red River Guides. Maybe it was the slow drifting, the cold water plunge, or the handful of Class II rapids we went down, but this was the first time everyone started to feel better after the illness. We needed this rafting trip!
That evening we headed sound to The Needles section of Canyonlands. We stopped at Newspaper Rock — and here’s the part where we say “There are petroglyphs and then there is this place. Wow, do not drive past Newspaper Rock!
Inside the park we explored Potholes and hiked the Cave Spring Trail where we had a very close encounter with an long eared owl. We camped at Needles Outpost, a private campground right outside the park. We enjoyed a wonderful evening and night at the camp, with the girls scampering around on the rocks.
The next morning we stopped a Chisler Park. We didn’t have time to do the entire hike, but we covered a couple miles. At this point, we have a decision to make: go back to Zion and try the Narrows or head to the Grand Canyon?