Arches 101 for First-Time Visitors

hey everybody we're Matt and Cheryl with we're in the Rockies and on our Channel we try to help you have a great trip to the West today we're talking about Arches National Park but before we kind of dive into the basics of arches just want to let you know we are in Green River Utah right now this is kind of your first tip for the video is staying in Green River Utah as opposed to Moab Utah which is right next to arches can save a lot of money it's a little bit farther away but it's quite a bit cheaper and it's less crazy so this week is Easter Jeep Safari week in Moab and so Moab was insanely busy so we booked a place out here in Green River kind of a nice little way to get away from the crowds of arches and Moab so let's get into our topics here for our arches 101 class today the first thing to know about Arches National Park is that it's small I think it's the second smallest National Park in the state of Utah really a joy to visit for that reason you're not just driving all over the place like you are some other national parks which is one reason why it's not that bad of an idea to stay here in Green River because although you'll drive about 45 minutes to get to arches you're not going to be doing a ton of driving around this Park in Arches which kind of leads me to the second thing to know about it is that one way in one way out it's a one entrance Park and so that's kind of been the headache of some of the issues that arches has had is that with only one entrance the lines can get really really long because there's really only one drive that goes to the end of the park one road everybody that enters is on that one road driving to the end of the park and back pretty much with a couple of little spur roads arches Scenic Drive is one of the best scenic drives in the Utah national parks it's really a delightful drive as you kind of wind through some formations and you see the Arches as you're driving by and you see some different formations and stuff like that it's it's really one of the more enjoyable ones it's great so like how long does it take to drive from the beginning to the end of the park if you're not stopping probably about a half hour I think the road is 17 or 18 miles let's not talk about reservations arches has been dealing with a lot of crowding like Matt mentioned because it is such a small Park and it gets 2 million visitors it can be kind of a nightmare or it was it used to be really rough and you know we're utahns and we've grown up going to this park and it's crazy over the years how it's changed we used to just pack up and go to arches on a whim and it was no big deal and there really weren't even that many people there but now we've actually written a guide to cover Moab arches and Canyonlands and we really wanted to do our homework so we've been out here a few separate occasions this year and we were here in November when the there wasn't a ticketed entry system and the parking lots were packed in November it was crazy and so we were kind of nervous about coming here over spring break during Jeep Safari weekend but we wanted to make sure our guide would work with crowds and that ticketed reservation system actually made the trip wonderful I know it's really hard to get a reservation and I don't even want to get on and tell you reservation Windows on this video right now because it seems like the parks are changing these so often that I wouldn't want to give you wrong information if you're watching this after they've changed it but what I can tell you is that you will need a reservation most likely but what you can do is go to the National Park site and recreation.gov and those will give you those those windows you get on it right when they open up because they do fill up quickly because this is such a popular Park next thing to know about it is that there are six different sections to the park so although it's kind of small they do have it divided into six little sections on the map and so as you as you look at the map of arches and as you drive through you'll you'll kind of know those little clusters of attractions as you go through there's places like the courthouse towers and the windows section Delicate Arch is the most famous feature in Arches of course we hit we have the arch on our on our logo right here and it has its own section of the park there's quite a few different uh sections to go check out while we're on that topic is that arches is more than just arches um there are a lot of arches throughout the park and they're kind of fun to spot they're actually really fun to spot you're always kind of you know we're always trying to check them off almost you know as we go through the park it is really crazy about like the lift so we've been aren't that far away from each other but if you hit arches and all of a sudden there's arches everywhere I mean it does have all those arches which is just awesome but the whole landscape is really kind of unusual there's some tall sections like Park Avenue is probably the you know the most kind of awe-inspiring type of a section where the walls are really high Love Park Avenue but then there's other places where there's a lot of fins and walls that you're walking on or walking around and in fact I think the funnest part of Arts is hiking through a lot of the other formations so there's a lot more to arches than just arches okay and I guess that gets me maybe to my next point is is that there's great hiking arches is really a wonderful hikers Park even if you're just kind of a day hiker like us you don't have to be back country person you know there's a lot of really short hikes where you can see some great things I mean one of my favorite is just like a a very short walk to double Arch double Arch is is the best well Delicate Arch is the best arch in the park there's no doubt about it but double Arch is the second best and that's just a nice short little walk you if you hike through Devil's Garden then you'll see seven arches if you go all the way around that's about eight miles or something like that you can see seven arches on that hike but also just a number of other amazing formations I shouldn't be telling you this but one of the best parts to hike is the Klondike Bluffs nobody really goes out there you have to get out go on a dirt road to get out there but that is just a wonderful area that leads through some beautiful scenery with a magnificent arch called Tower Arch at the end fiery furnace I mean this is really some wonderful hiking if you can get out of your car and walk around a little bit I have to say too that we travel with my parents who were retired and I'm I'm a severe special education teacher so I'm always thinking about people that may not be have great accessibility and you can see a lot of arches and the cool formations from your car or even if you can get out and go a little bit like there there's a lot of things that are easy easy to get to I mean like we're talking a quarter mile to see some of these things so it's not like you have to go on these big hikes to see arches I think we get asked a lot well I you know it's hard for me to get around can is this a good Park to see and I would say yeah the scenic drive in Arches is cool like of course it's better if you can get out and Hike it but if you can't you're gonna still feel like you had a good experience because arches is great from the seat of your car next thing to know about arches is it has great names whoever named this park really just did a magnificent job so just the name of the park itself arches is nice okay that's nice but then all the formation in there are great I mean you have delicate arch you have Park Avenue which it looks like a street kind of the perspective of looking down a street the windows Devil's Garden fiery furnace I mean Balanced Rock there's this one rock just slips up on top of a of a Sandstone it looks like it's going to fall over any moment now called balance Rock really some fun names to that Park so that is that's just kind of a cool thing in fact I think it's actually one of the things that's helped contribute to its popularity is that it's kind of got good marketing behind it yeah that is kind of funny to think about huh all right the next thing I want to tell you about arches is Arches is like one of three cool things in the area I think arches is like the the headliner but there's also Canyonlands pretty much across the street from arches and like we were saying each of the Utah Mighty five parks are different every Park you're like oh yeah this looks different Canyonlands is right next to arches and Canyonlands is incredibly different it's mostly big viewpoints I when I saw it I was like this is kind of like the Grand Canyon maybe not quite as grand um but the but very expansive views some of them you can see the Green River the Colorado flowing through there are a few arches in Canyonlands and Canyonlands is a lot bigger and a lot more built for I'd say like Adventure Hiking if you're wanting to do some you know like I know some of us are big adventure hikers too and we don't mind hiking 10 miles to go see things but that's kind of what canyonland specialty is and then the other cool thing is Moab Moab is the city right outside of Canyonlands and arches and this is like a good and a bad thing people as many people come to Moab for the four-wheeling and the ATVs as they do to go to arches I know that people go to arches because they want to see The Arches but you're kind of missing out if you don't go on a Jeep ride and I would I would highly recommend you go on a guided Jeep Ride Like the terrain out here is craziness we booked a Jeep ride last year and went on some I guess their obstacles like just even from the beginning I'm like we're going up that what like there's just a wall in front of this way how are we gonna get around this no just go over it so it is great you are missing out if you don't do a Jeep ride we went on Hell's Revenge that's kind of the famous Trail but there's a ton of trails around there so you're missing out they're gonna do that yeah and I think you know we travel with our children and sometimes the sightseeing gets a little old for them but the Jeep right is something they still talk about like that was exciting and fun and I just think that anytime you can add a little bit of variety to your national parks trip it makes it memorable never wrapping too by the way yes but um and I was also to say with Moab being so close I've noticed that there's there aren't camping places around here but there I would say more than any of the other Utah national parks Moab has places to stay oh yeah oh definitely and a lot of good restaurants like that yes because it's right on the main highway there so Moab is a really accessible Place yeah so just to boil it down like if you like the outdoors but you like to sleep in a comfortable bed well that's a good place to stay next thing to let you guys know is a little bit about the weather and climate here we always say Utah's high and dry and it's true it's really hot really dry but arches get oh my gosh so hot in the summer like us locals we don't even touch it June July and August we are just like no yeah people have told me that the crowds generally do die down in in July and August but a lot of Europeans are coming over during those months they don't seem to mind the heat they're kind of filling in the crowds a little bit but traditionally the crowds dip a little bit in July and August because it's just so so hot so you know and the thing is if you can visit Moab almost all year long now Matt was here in March and it was a little treacherous there was Ice Still a great time still a great time and November was a great time and I feel like those hiking things you can always throw extra layers on and be comfortable hiking around but if it's 100 degrees outside there's not a whole lot you can do plus it's hotter than 100 degrees because that red rock it traps in that heat and it like just radiates off those rocks it can make it super hot um and also one other thing I did want to mention I forgot to mention about the reservations is that with the timed entry tickets as they are right now they do allow people without reservations to come in before six or after four o'clock and we actually utilize that this trip we thought hey we can catch Delicate Arch at Sunset let's do it and we didn't have a reservation we came into the park around 4 30 and it worked great which is great if you're here in April and it's cool you know in the summer you know you're going to be roasting if you do that but the park was open at four like it was and this is over spring break it was easy to go into arches and find a parking spot it was just fine okay final thing to know about arches is how many days to visit okay so again you don't just visit arches alone I mean you shouldn't anyway there's so many great things around there and there's Canyonlands right next door by the way Canyonlands keeps drawing me in time and time again it's kind of the Rodney Dangerfield in Parks people don't really respect for that much it's it's not as Grand as the Grand Canyon and it's not as cool as ours is for most people but it is a wonderful place so we have actually created a plan for you so what we recommend is one day in Arches if you're not a hiker two days in Arches if you are a hiker at least a day in Canyonlands now Canyonlands has different sections there's the island in the sky section so you should spend a day there and it's also worth going south to spend a day in the Needles District so that would that would be three to four days right there and and then again there's Jeep rides and other adventure activities so Moab is like a three to five day vacation with arches taking up a day or two of that and that's why we've actually designed a guide just for you our Moab guide is a three to five day guide to visit that area there are some gorgeous scenic drives around there that you want to go on there's petroglyphs to find there's dinosaur tracks there's wonderful drives that you can do off-road there's some like some off-roading drives and there's some nice scenic drives there's mountains to explore so even though it's Red Rock country the LaSalle mountains are always there on the backdrop of Moab just towering over the area just so much to explore there that is why we created an itinerary for you that that works for three to five days you can get that on our website at we're in the rockies.com so go check that out thank you so much for watching and until next time Go West Young Traveler

Channel: We're in the Rockies

Views: 39,722

Keywords: Arches National Park, Delicate arch

Id: ZckAdu2G_Dk

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Sun May 07 2023