Early in our trip, we visited what could possibly be the largest man-made arch on earth, the Gateway Arch in St Louis. This later stop in our trip brings us to see an amazing collection of natural arches, each astounding in its own way. This park is full of stone arches carved by nature from the sandstone. Again, like with Mesa Verde, I’m so impressed by the scale. There are a great many more than just a few arches and they’re large, very large. I’ve been very much looking forward to this stop on our trip because it’s one of a handful of our destinations I’ve not seen before.

It was a bit out of the way to build this park into our travel itinerary but I’m so glad we made it here. It was a good chance for the boys to strap their hiking boots on and put them to some good use. We did a good bit of hiking and made it to quite a few of the arches. We also saw Balanced Rock and had a picnic lunch with that as our backdrop. The afternoon heat prompted a bit of moaning but once we made it to an arch that could be climbed everyone was happy. Especially Collin who loves climbing anything.

This is Delicate Arch, reaching it requires a one and a half-mile uphill hike from the nearest parking area. I chose to find my way to Delicate Arch for sunrise which meant a 4:30 AM wake-up. I made this trek alone as I couldn’t convince any of the others they wanted to meet the early call. I’m really glad I went. I got there just before sunrise and had the company of just one other photographer. It was serene to sit and watch the sun slowly painting the arch with light as it rose. Beautiful.

This quickly became one of the points I hope to return to sometime in the future.