We were up early this morning. We learned our lesson that it is important to beat the heat at Arches National Park, so we rolled past the entry gate before 7:00 this morning. The sun was just peeking over the horizon as we drove by some of the large red rock formations that we have come to love.
In the distance, we can see the first light of the day coming through the arches. Even though we had pretty thoroughly visited this national park six years ago, we just couldn't leave without seeing some of those arches again.
So we started our early morning arch tour at the Windows Section of the park. The windows are open this morning!
Our first arch of the day is lit up by that early morning sunshine. Denisa climbed through the window so Mark snapped this picture of Turret Arch.
As we walked toward the next set of arches, we were looking into the sun. Denisa climbed up into this window, but this picture wasn't snapped by Mark. Another early morning riser took this photo with the bright sun behind Denisa and thought it was nice. So she approached us and offered to air drop it to our phone. Nice!
This is a matching set of arches, so we took this picture of Denisa in the north window . . .
and Mark in the south arch.
Together they make up the North and South Arch. We have wandered into more of God's wonders!
Arches National Park has the densest concentration of natural stone arches in the world, and more people are discovering it. The number of people visiting has almost doubled in the last 10 years, causing park closures when the parking lots fill and the maximum occupancy is exceeded. That usually happens in September, when temperatures start to cool. Definitely the way to beat the heat and the crowds is to come early or late in the day. The crowds are still quite small and it is still quite cool this morning. So we made the short hike over to the Double Arch to continue our arch tour. Can you see Mark's silhouette inside the arch?
You can get all kinds of neat pictures of the Double Arch, and of course we tried lots of angles.
Then Mark took a picture of Denisa looking quite small on the desert floor during this arch tour.
Denisa walked all the way around this massive rock formation just to get a picture of the backside of Double Arch. We have definitely wandered into more of God's wonders today!
That put us on the way to another feature seldom mentioned in the arch tour. We are heading towards Cove Arch. It's hard to see in the middle of the picture below.
It's not listed in the national park brochure, and there is no trail leading to it. But we hiked to where we could see the blue sky through Cove Arch.
Mark has met few arches that he couldn't climb into, so he finally found a way to get in the window.
It's fun to see the camera view, framed by Cove Arch, of this desert-like national park.
Walking back to the pickup, we saw Elephant Butte. If you squint year eyes, you can see the head and trunk on the right, and the elephant's body on the left.
Denisa is getting nosed by that elephant trunk as we headed back to the air-conditioner in the pickup. It's now 9:30, and the temperature is heating up as we finished our early morning arch tour here at Arches National Park. While most of the day's visitors are just coming into the park, we're glad that we have toured and are already going out.
Our arch tour today included six arches. That's a few less than the 2,000 documented arches in this national park. But it was a great morning of wandering through six more of God's wonders!
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