Spring 2012: Monday (4/9) - Arches

We took the afternoon off and went to visit Arches National Park which has over 2000 natural sandstone arches.  It was up to about 80° today so we took it slow and only did a few hikes.  The first was Park Avenue which has tall rock “building” formations on each side of the canyon.  We also saw a number of famous formations: Three Gossips, Courthouse Towers, Balanced Rock, Garden of Eden, Windows Arches, Double Arch, and the Fiery Furnace.  One other day this week we may do the Fiery Furnace hike.  We’ll see if it cools down later in the week before we decide. 

This is Park Avenue - if you can imagine these rocks as buildings and the path down below as the street.

We walked from one end to the other and back. 

This is known as the Three Gossips.

They call this Courthouse Towers.

Balanced Rock is said to be the size of three school buses.

Another view of Balanced Rock and its surroundings.

This is called the Garden of Eden - with the LaSal Mountains in the distance.

More figures in the Garden of Eden.

This section is known as the Windows - there are 4 arches/windows here including the two below which you can see slightly to the right here..

This is Turret Arch up closer.

This is a long distance view of Double Arch (and a few others) - look in the middle of the shot.

You can see it better below.

Here is Double Arch a little closer.

and closer yet.

This area is the Fiery Furnace - in the right light it looks very red like flames.