Last of Arches - a photo on Flickriver

Last of Arches

            Last shot from the Arches area, stay tuned to see where we head next!

Arches National Park

Here is the set I know a lot of people have been waiting to see. Arches was on the very top of our list of "must do" before we even left Pittsburgh. Located in mid Utah just around an hour from Colorado and the amazing town on Moab. But warning, when heading to Arches be sure and make reservations for a hotel, they are very hard to come by just coming into town with none. I did this twice, one time we got lucky, the other time I ended up sleeping in my truck!

Before heading into the park maybe grab a bite down in Moab and explore all the cool unique shops around town, there is a rock shop on the main road and its definitely  a cool place to check out! Just a few minutes from Arches and Moab is yet another National Park, Canyon lands and this deserves a visit as well, we put aside a few hours to check out all the scenery around the area, so you can expect a Canyon Lands set after this one.

I always tell everyone, If I could pick two National Parks to visit and just two, they would be Yellowstone hands down and Arches. You'll see why from these pictures, you'll never see Arches like this anywhere else on the planet. 

Heading into the park, you'll head up a steep hill and see signs for bighorns and what not, unfortunately wildlife is pretty sparse in the desert, or maybe I just had bad luck. Still no sighting of a mountain lion! 

One of the first stops are the Petrified Dunes, ancient sand dunes that basically turned to rock after millions of years, then you'll drive past the famous Balanced Rock. On our trip we headed strait to Delicate Arch first thing in the morning to beat all the tourists and it was well worth it.

The Delicate Arch hike was a blast, temperatures are high though so make sure to bring a few liters of water with you and a good pair of hiking shoes/boots (some of the rocks you have to walk on are a bit slippery) I've hiked probably 75% of the National Parks and I can honestly say the hike to Delicate Arch was the most rewarding at the end when you turn around that final corner and there it is...definitely something Ill remember the rest of my life. If you can handle a few miles, just do it you won't regret it.

We spent a long time just sitting on a cliff looking at the arch, then eventually hiked back down (The parking lot was now jammed packed) Next we headed to the Devils Garden, unfortunately we didn't hike to Landscape Arch (I ended up coming back in a few months and doing that hike) but we did see some of the others like Sand Dune Arch, Broken Arch and a few others.

After seeing a small glimpse of the famous Devils Garden we started out of the park and stopped at a few things we skipped such as the Windows Section, did the entire hike around and stopped to see Double Arch. This is a must see when visiting Arches, not much hiking is needed either you can pretty much see these from the car. 

And that's a quick summary of the Arches trip, like I said its amazing. Everyone should go and see Arches if they can at some point you'll remember it the rest of your life. Utah itself I fell in love with, just the colors of the rock, the sand, and so on. Its a total different world than Pennsylvania!

Taken on: July 6, 2013

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Sets appears in: • Arches National Park • National Parks/Monuments/Ect more » • D300s HDRs • Black and White • HDR « less

Camera: Nikon D300S, f/4.8, 1/1600 sec, 60mm (=90mm), ISO 250 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D300S
Lens:	18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6
Aperture:	f/4.8
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/1600)
Focal Length:	60mm (35mm equivalent: 90mm)
ISO:	250
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)
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