Our last stops in our Utah Trip - Arches & Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We arrived at Delicate Arch, one of the most famous and picturesque images of Arches National Park in Utah. We went on a Sunday so it was a little more crowded (probably nothing compared to pre-COVID times during the summer) despite us being there I think around 930am. The rim around it was huge and with the cold, it felt slippery so stayed on the edges and snapped some pictures. It was a 1.5 mile uphill to the Arch, which felt like nothing compared to the hike to Druid Arch. Also Druid Arch was much more massive and we had it all to ourselves since it's harder to get to and it's the low season. Nonetheless, it was beautiful to look at. Arches National Park is a great park for the elderly and kids because as you drive through the park you can snap photos without really hiking.

This is a shot of balanced rock without even leaving the car lol.

And this is Park Avenue which I guess its name comes from the semblance of the skyscrapers in New York City. This could be viewed after getting out of your car and walking 200 feet. So Arches National Park is very accessible for those who are not able to do much walking or hiking.

Our stop in Arches was short because even despite it being off-season, because of COVID we did not want to be surrounded by others and went back and relaxed at our Airbnb for the rest of the day. Arches NP is under an hour drive from Moab so it was very easy to get to. It would be a great place if you are lucky on a moonless night and clear skies to look at the stars since Arches is also a verified International Dark Sky Park. I can imagine the Milky way above Balanced Rock would be a magnificent view.

So after a couple of days of Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate (had to rest a couple of days because my ankles were strained due to some weak ankles and the long hiking), we headed to Western Colorado to see Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It is a six-hour round trip so we woke up early for our long day.

It was a picturesque drive, especially in the morning when the desert plants were covered in Rime Ice which happens when water droplets freeze in a fog which you saw from my other posts that Utah experiences some heavy inversions.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/ccba74_8f13440862904c118d3ddee49b649a1a/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

After driving through Grand Junction Utah which was a large suburban-like area but did not feel like a suburb at the same time (you have to drive through it to understand), we arrived at the Park. They experienced some heavy snow a few days ago and it did not melt so we broke out our snowshoes to hike along the South Rim of the Canyon.

I love how snow glitters and sparkles in the sunshine! Thankfully we wore our sunglasses to not go snowblind since it was very sunny that day.

We approached the first overlook called Pulpit Rock, which from the Visitor Center was 2 miles one way. It is the 1 out of the 12 overlooks in the park. It was impressive to see how the Gunnison river a couple of million years ago gushed and carved through these formations creating these huge cliffs, where the tallest in the park is about 2.7K ft - as tall as the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai!

It was so majestic and powerful to look at despite my fear of heights, which I think rock climbing has helped out so much (ugh I miss indoor rock climbing; cant believe I am saying that).

We could have hiked more but my ankle was still healing so we decided to turn around and just do a four-mile snowshoe hike. Also, the snow was much deeper since I think many others did not hike past this overlook so it would have been even harder to hike through it (I fell on my butt a couple of times snowshoeing but it was fun and I have waterproof pants and jacket so it dried in seconds).

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed Post 1, 2, and this last one of our mini getaway to Utah. Hopefully next year we can take a real honeymoon and do Plan A (Argentina and Brazil). However, I am pleasantly surprised by Utah and loved every minute of it!

See you in 2021!