🌉🏞️ World's Largest Arches + Most on the Planet: Arches National Park | 51 Parks with the Newstates

with over 2 000 in the park this is the Arches capital of the world welcome to Arches National Park come along as we show you some of the famous spots some hidden gems plus a shortcut out to see Delicate Arch we're Howard and Caitlin new state this year we're traveling to 51 parks in 52 weeks we're visiting all the U.S national parks in the lower 48 in a special Winnebago Vista limited edition each week we're sharing where to stay what to do and introducing you to the people doing incredible work across our national parks Arches National Park located just north of downtown Moab is one of the most well-known parks in the system after all the famous Delicate Arch found inside the park is on the state of Utah's license plate given its compact size combined with easy sightseeing and its close proximity to Moab arches is a highly visited Park seeing on average about one and a half million people a year and because of that popularity the park has implemented a timed entry system so this is very very important if you're planning a trip to the park between April 1st and October 31st you must make a reservation on recreation.gov in order to enter the park between the hours of 7am and 4pm there's one main out and back road with two spur roads that will take you to some of the most popular areas of the park there's also a campground here which we'll touch on shortly Plus Great hiking for all skill levels and of course the famous namesake formations arches and a visit to the national park should always include a visit to Moab there are campgrounds and hotels for every price point and style of travel we chose Sun Outdoors North Moab is our base for exploring because it's about halfway between the park entrance and downtown Moab well this Campground keeps getting better and better because there is a brew pub immediately out the front gate yeah and the menu looks really interesting so they have all kinds of craft beer but they have food too and an extensive vegan menu and we are in the market for some food we are hungry that was delicious there were so many choices if you're vegan vegetarian if you don't eat red meat like me you can have three different burger patties I had one that was called the Hipster that had spinach garlic aioli pesto uh pickled cucumbers it was so delicious like the flavor combination was incredible I loved it and the bread was super fluffy too oh it was so good yeah I had the Johnny Utah which really doesn't tell you much about what was in it but it was like a turkey Reuben topping for a burger and then the poutine was Magnifique yeah it was great oh and the drinks so they make cocktails with the beer and kombucha that they make there on site and so I had a kombucha cocktail uh which was also very good very light and refreshing and you had a beer Garita yeah it had a beer as a base and it was really refreshing it was delicious yeah the cayenne pepper too on the back end was and now we're home which is great foreign [Music] to come here on a weekday we are here in the summer they are on reservation only we were able to not only score a reservation but also there was nobody in line it was amazing so we're already in the park if you've watched any of our other National Park episodes you know we always recommend making your first stop the visitor center we grabbed our sticker magnet and passport stamp and strolled through the exhibits to get a better lay of the land this little guy is the grasshopper mouse this is a fierce Mouse it eats scorpions by ripping its tail off and then eating it head first it also consumes a beetle that's kind of like a smelly Beetle by sticking its rear end into the sand so that way it neutralizes the smell so it can eat it this is a tough tough rodent ranger Emily I'm Ranger Drew we're going to be talking about potholes today you might not think that there's a lot of flowing water in the desert so in Arches we have a lot of precipitation during monsoon season which happens between the months of July and October so when it rains water has to go somewhere one really interesting phenomenon that happens when water is Flowing turbulently is it'll form these big whirlpools that will essentially drill vertically into the Rock they are a source of water but do they have water all the time no they don't so there's three things you do when there are change in your environment you adapt you move or you die examples of drought escapers would be the red spotted toad but there's actually a great example of this in Park Ave right now which I after a rainstorm when potholes fill up with water it will mate and lay eggs in the potholes and the eggs will hatch in a matter of hours into tadpoles they have 40 or 60 days to turn in toads or else they will die so we had to venture out and come see for ourselves and sure enough there are dozens of tadpoles here in this pothole and it's so cool I mean they are quite large like you can see them no problem at all and they're just swimming around and they have a very finite amount of time to become frogs before this water evaporates and they die so come on little guys you can do it that's so cool we saw one really oh there it is there's a really big one in there and he's well on his way or she is on her way to becoming a frog so there are definitely tinier ones and bigger ones that are much further along in their Frog journey and when we were in Acadia National Park we saw the biggest tadpoles either one of us have ever seen in our lives they were about this big and they already had their legs with their tails so the process was pretty far along and it was so cool to see that and there was a big frog overlooking the little tadpole half frogs and just up from that pothole is an example of a dried up one like the Rangers were talking about so even though there's no water in here there are lots of living organisms so don't step in it we see some Footprints here which is really sad so they might have crushed some things that were living we're at the Park Avenue Trail which is 1.8 miles round trip and you know how people use their imagination to see like shapes in the clouds that's kind of what happened here at this Trail all of the rock formations have very interesting names Park Avenue got its name because it looks like the skyline of the city but then there's also a rock that's like sausage Rock AKA corn dog Rock so they encourage you to use your imagination as you're walking along the trail and see what shapes you spot sometimes it can be hard to distinguish the trail from just the desert when you're walking on rock and stone enter the Cairn Karen's kind of like a pile of rocks that means that you're on the trail think of it as like a Trailblazer or a trail marker so look for the Cairns and you'll know you're in the right direction what do you think Caitlin you think that's the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building I know it is really fun to try to figure out what you know the names came from and everything there's a rock up there that looks like Balanced Rock and there is an actual Balanced Rock in the park there is there is but I feel like that one is kind of giving it a run for its money it's competing to be the next Balanced Rock who will be the next it's like American Idol but for rock amazing [Music] [Applause] just like we were talking about at Guadalupe Mountains National Park it's really important that you stay on trail here because of the cryptobiotic crust that is living here in the desert just one step off Trail can cause damage that can take a lot of time to restore there's signs everywhere reminding you about it it's a very sensitive ecosystem so just make sure you're staying on trail this is our fourth stop in our Mighty five of the Utah parks and I've said it before I just love how completely different every single Park is here in Utah and while the Arches here at Arches National Park are the main attraction this is such an interesting park from a geological standpoint there are all these other amazing rock formations so I would encourage you to take some of the other trails that don't necessarily feature those big arches because you will see a lot of really cool stuff this was our third time visiting Arches National Park and the weather on this trip was decidedly mixed here comes the rain luckily we have footage from prior trips and we also try to explore hiking trails and areas we hadn't seen before a lot of the most popular sites are easily accessible right off the main road or on one of the two spur roads we recommend stopping at various pull-offs and researching any hikes you're interested in doing one of our favorites from a past trip was Sand Dune Arch which takes you into an area that's sort of like a big sandbox and this is a great place to see an arch up close of course there's also the extremely popular double Arch and the windows these two short Trail share parking area and you can stroll through to see some of the most famous and largest arches in the park now according to our audio tour there are 13 arches on the window Trail here you can take a short walk to see North window South window and turret Arch so now we're at a double Arch and in 2020 this was my all-time favorite Arch but of course now I have new favorites that's the beauty of visiting the same park more than once so you can have different experiences every time double Arch is the tallest and second largest arch in the park and it's an amazing sight to see the trail out to double Arch is only 0.6 miles round trip and you get up close to this incredible formation this is a must do here in arches we just did a little drive through Devil's Garden Campground which is so beautiful the views from every single site are epic some in particular like 24 and on yeah so good and it's pretty funny because we actually had a reservation for site 24 for a couple of nights I was able to score cancellation but then we ultimately ended up canceling we looked at the forecast and it's in the high 80s and you definitely feel that here in the desert and it's dry camping so we knew the doggos would be too hot yeah somebody else got very lucky with a great site particularly with national parks they typically have generator hours so only six hours a day could you run your generator in there for your air conditioning and it wasn't just the 80s Caitlyn it was the 90s yeah so at the 90s I think that's just a bit much like you're really right on that line where we wouldn't feel comfortable leaving the dogs for an extended period of time so they are lounging in the AC down in Moab right now while we are sweating our butts off here in Arches but we had to come through to show you guys what a beautiful Campground is you're deep in the heart of the park and it's just great for exploring oh my goodness and the views out of your campsites make sure you always look at the pictures recreation.gov typically have pictures of each one of the campsites make sure you take a look at those [Music] okay so we're about to start what I like to call a super hike because in just two miles you can see five arches including the world's longest and one of the five arches you can see here on the trail tunnel or say short walk down off the main trail and then you can turn a large by looking for the bonus one too yeah another one's forming right there what do you think that one's going to be named new state new state Arch I don't think so [Music] you can see why it's called Pine Tree Art a bunch of pine trees growing under the arch we made it to the famous landscape Arch this is the longest arch in the world in our opinion this is a must-see especially because it might not be here much longer there have been big sections that have fallen off of it and so scientists have really started to question the Integrity of it and if it's near the end of its life cycle so come see landscape Arch it's not that far from the parking lot [Music] difficulty level went up okay Caitlin I do want to add to Howard's statement about being able to see five arches on this Trail you can see three arches relatively easily you can see two more with about a 500 foot climb of some rocks it's short but you will get a cardio workout in uh so let's go see I hope these are worth the extra effort the other two up the hill past landscape Arch our petition Arch and Navajo Arch Caitlyn this is the actual Arch we get to walk in it it looks like it there's a pine tree growing in it this looks pretty cool all right let's go [Music] [Applause] all right I can confirm that Navajo Arch is definitely worth the extra effort it is beautiful you get to walk under it and there are pine trees come to the other side of just sitting here and looking at all of the pine trees the other rock formations it's kind of like stormy looking on the other side so it's really adding to the Ambiance of it it's definitely worth it so how do all these amazing arches form well we aren't geologists but Ranger programs and reading certainly helps the force of water has helped shape this landscape over millions of years and there are a few different ways that arches can form one of which is in the winter time water seeps into crevices and cracks freezing and expanding and then thawing again breaking off sections of rock until they are made into formations called fins you'll hear that term a lot here the process happens over and over until an arch starts to form an in true Circle of Life fashion that same process of erosion will eventually cause the arch to collapse as we're starting to see with landscape Arch well the weather is starting to turn a little bit so I'm really hopeful that we can make it to partition Arch and back down that really uh dicey area before it starts raining yeah that would not be good to do when it's slick and slippery I wonder if that's a slide I was gonna say do you wonder if that's slick Rock I mean slick rock is a thing it very well could be okay we made it and it's one of the ones where you can actually see out cool [Laughter] oh wow partition Arch is my new favorite Arch so it was extra worth it to climb up that hill to come see that the view out over the valley is just spectacular and there were a bunch of birds flying around and chirping and just sitting there and taking that all in was awesome when you climb up here you get a really great view of the LaSalle mountain range and a little bit of a funny story that we heard from our audio guide they're called the LaSalle mountains which means salt because the Spanish explorers thought there was no way that those could be snow-capped mountains here in the desert so they said it must be salt and they're Native American guide said yep it sure is salt and then they showed them salt in other areas because they didn't want them to know that there was in fact snow at the top of the mountains so that is why they are called the LaSalle mountains oh man I don't know if you guys know this from any of our other videos but I don't do Heights very well what okay you ready yeah come on [Music] as we mentioned in the beginning of the episode Delicate Arch is the most famous in the park and to get an up close glimpse of it you have to hike about three miles round trip on a steady uphill if you don't have the time to do that there's another way to see it from the Delicate Arch Viewpoint you can get a glimpse of it from about a mile away there it is so you really don't have to walk far to get a glimpse of it at all or you can see it from the upper Viewpoint which will still require a bit of an uphill climb but it only takes about 15 minutes that's better on our next episode it's Park number 20 and the fifth and final of Utah's Mighty five we're heading up the road to Canyonlands National Park which couldn't be any more different than its famous neighbor with all the Arches thanks so much for watching we'll see you next week

Channel: Newstate Nomads

Views: 13,798

Keywords: arches national park, arches national park utah, delicate arch, landscape arch, moab utah, best hikes in arches national park, arches national park in one day, national parks road trip, delicate arch viewpoint

Id: i_mdjLmWZIU

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 16 2023