Road Trip West 10, Arches National Park

Richard Rathe April 2026 (Birds, Flowers, History, Panoramas)

We entered Arches National Park about 8am the next day. This was a great time for photographing the rock formations in the southern part of the park (near the entrance). Our plan was to take a leisurely drive north—exploring along the way—until we reached the Devil's Garden area. This is where the majority of the notable arches are. You might also like to view photos from My November 2024 Trip.

As we were walking back to the car from the Skyline Arch this incredibly iridescent blue bird appeared! I just had time to snap these low-res photos with my phone. Within thirty seconds it was gone. The inset photo does not do the color justice—it was intense rainbow blue. I think we were just lucky to be directly sunward where the actual iridescence was maximized. I tried to key it out and I'm fairly certain this was either Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay based mostly on distribution maps, or a far-flung California Scrub-Jay based on appearance.

We proceeded north to the Devil's Garden parking lot and started our hike. Our first stop was a side trail to the Tunnel & Pine Tree Arches.

From there it was not far to the 290 foot long, 77 foot tall Landscape Arch! It is only 18 feet wide at its most slender point.

From that point on the trial becomes much more rugged—climbing up one of the numerous sandstone ridges from which the arches erode. It was extremely windy as predicted, so we elected not to take the longer trail to the Double O Arch since it is very exposed.

Instead we took the side trail to the Navajo Arch to eat lunch. I really like this small arch because it is tucked back into the hillside and you can walk all around it. Below is a 360° panorama with the actual arch appearing to the lower left.

After backtracking a bit, the trail forks and leads to the Partition Arch—a major arch with a small companion on the side.

Climbing down turned out to be harder that climbing up. I had to sit down and crawl on my butt in a few places. The wind made it hard to keep my balance in the narrow places. Gusts to 40mph were predicted.

We drove over to see the iconic Delicate Arch before leaving the park. There were lots of cars in the parking lots, but not many people around the arch itself. I assume they were all hiding from the wind.