Day 32: Moab, UT – Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

Get ready for a picture overload.

Given the amount of traffic and warnings I’ve heard about how crowded Arches can get, I wanted to get there early as we could. We did a fairly decent job of getting on the road early-ish. I would have liked to have left about 30 minutes earlier. It wasn’t until we were almost at the entrance of Arches that we realized we had no gas. So we had to head back to town, get gas, and try again. In the end, we weren’t early-ish.

Luckily, the crowds weren’t so bad, or so we thought. There are so many stops and wonderful sights to see in Arches, but we made a list of the top sights we wanted to hit since we were also trying to see some of Canyonlands today. Our first stop was Balanced Rock which was really cool. The kids tore off towards the rock as soon as they got out of the car. Hudson was, once again, in his element with tons of space and rocks to climb.

On our way back to the car, Hudson said “this place is way better than Yellowstone!” I almost went into a small lecture about how it is hard to compare the two since they are so different and one isn’t better than the other, but then I realized for him, it probably was better. In Yellowstone, we spent a lot of time in the car and when we did get out he had to stay on the boardwalks so he wouldn’t fall into geothermal pools. In Arches, he had a lot more freedom and autonomy which we are learning (and maybe should have already known) is really important to him. I’m not sure how to balance this need with the fact that he is 8, but it’s something we are thinking about.

Our next stop was Double Arches and it may have been our favorite stop of the day. It is beyond gorgeous and they let you climb up to take a photo in the arch! It wasn’t the easiest climb, but it was doable and I’ll so glad we did it. Lucy wants to do everything Hudson can which is hard given she is younger and smaller, but for the most part, she stays just a few steps behind him. After we climbed the arch, the kids found a “cave” they could crawl through. They did this more than five times. We finally told them we had to leave. I think they would have stayed there all day.

From the Double Arches we went to the Delicate Arch trailhead. This is when we realized the park was pretty crowded. The parking lot was full and it dawned on us people came here first which made sense since it was starting to get hot. Also, the signs say the hike will take a total of three hours. We arrived at the trailhead at 10 so we were going to be hiking while it was hot and lunchtime: not the best recipe for hiking with kids. But we were here so we loaded up the camelback with snacks and headed out. There are two trails you can take. One takes you to an overlook to see the Delicate Arch. This is the easier route. Given we had already taken our kids on one dangerous hike through Yellowstone we figured they could handle the “moderate” hike to get to the Delicate Arch. We were right! There were several families doing this trail and while there is one small section that you will want to have a death-grip on your children, it was fine.

Lucy doesn’t like the heat and made sure to tell me about it on the way up. I was getting frustrated that I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted and that she was complaining so much, but I tried to remember that we are doing this trip WITH our kids and that means doing things at their pace. She’s five. It was hot. It was lunchtime so, of course, she was going to complain and take it slow. Once I got my mind right, decided to slow down and relish the time I had with her we both enjoyed the hike much more. And the Delicate Arch was so worth the hike. When Hudson saw it he said “woooow!!” Lucy said “double woooow!!” I don’t have a photo of us under the Delicate Arch because a man with a nice camera took a photo of us. He is going to email it to me. I love meeting people along the way.

On the way back, we found a small arch (I’m sure it has name that I don’t know), that the kids wanted to climb up to and see the view. It was steep, but we all did it!

The hike down was much easier on the kids although Hudson was the one complaining with about a third of the hike left. I told Lucy that she was good hiker and she said “I may be a good hiker, but it doesn’t mean I like it.” At this point it was 12:40 and we were all ready for lunch. We packed our cooler with sandwiches so we sat in the truck eating our lunch. I’m sure we could have found a better spot to picnic, but we just needed to eat. I told Jordan while we were eating that I’m really thankful we are all healthy and able-bodied enough to be this active as a family on our trip. We climbed rocks, did a moderate hike, and even though I mentioned the complaining to keep this blog real, we had a wonderful time.

After lunch, we decided to head Canyonlands. It was a thirty minute drive and we could tell we all could use some rest. Canyonlands was impressive. I don’t know if I would say it’s beautiful, so impressive seems to be the right word. We are learning that after about 3 hours of hiking our kids are sort of done for the day with more hikes. We didn’t have any hikes on the agenda but we did have some walks to get to overlooks. Since we weren’t actually done for the day this meant the kids were squabbling with each other (and us) most of the afternoon. At one point, I threw out the classic mom phrase “if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all,” and they were actually quiet for a bit. I guess they really didn’t have anything nice to say. The quiet did all of us some good.

We didn’t do any hikes in Canyonlands, but hit up about four spots: Grand View Point Overlook, Buck Canyon Overlook, Mesa Arch and Shafer Canyon Overlook. I’m always amazed that Hudson can find anything to climb or crawl under. Our last stop, which is actually the first when you enter the park, was Schafer Canyon Overlook. There is a ledge you can stand on to get a great photo. These younger people (maybe in their 20s) were dangling their legs off the side and doing silly poses as they were taking photos. I was praying we weren’t going to witness a fall. When it was our turn we just stood there, snapped a few photos and left. I still get nervous thinking about them. I hope their Instagram photo was worth it!

We left Canyonlands and headed home to the OK RV park that we have decided might be less than OK. Dinner was waiting for us in the instant pot which was so nice. Moving forward, I’m going to make sure I cook dinner in the instant pot before we leave on our full days of exploring so we can come home to a warm dinner. We don’t have sewer hook ups at this park so we had to take quick showers after our dusty and dirty day which was really unfortunate because we had amazing hot water pressure here!

Seeing all these natural wonders prompted Hudson to ask a lot of questions about the universe and specifically, how big it is. Jordan tried to explainand also found a video that tried to put the size of the universe in perspective. The kids minds were blown. Photos like the one below are some of my favorite because you see how large the rock is compared to us. Traveling around the USA, seeing large, beautiful landscapes, and iconic sights reminds me that I’m really just a small fragment of a much larger world. This trip has lead Jordan and I to question and reorganize our priorities. I hope that when we return home and enter back into “everyday” life we are able to keep this perspective.

Tomorrow is a travel day so we can see more of Utah!

Until next time…

Sarah