USA Guide
The Southwest
Arches National Park
Arches National Park is one of the least terrestrial places on this planet. Massive fins of red and golden sandstone stand to attention out of the bare desert plain, and over eighteen hundred natural arches of various shapes and sizes have been cut into the rock by eons of erosion. The narrow, hunching ridges are more like dinosaurs' backbones than solid rock, and under a full moon, you can't help but imagine that the landscape has a life of its own.
While you could race through in a couple of hours, plan to spend at least a day here to do Arches justice. A twenty-mile road cuts uphill sharply from US-191 and the visitor center (daily: April– Oct 7.30am–6.30pm; Nov– March 8am–4.30pm; $10 per vehicle or $5 for motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians; 
435/719-2299, 
www.nps.gov/arch ). The La Sal Mountains Viewpoint provides a grandstand look at the distant peaks rising over 12,000ft above the desert, as well as the huge red chunk of Courthouse Towers closer at hand.
From Balanced Rock beyond – a 50-foot boulder atop a slender 75-foot pedestal – a right turn winds two miles through the Windows section, where a half-mile trail loops through a dense concentration of massive arches, some over 100ft high and 150ft across. A second trail, fifty yards beyond, leads to Double Arch, a staunch pair of arches that together support another arch overhead.
Further on, the main road drops downhill for two miles past Panorama Point and the turnoff to Wolfe Ranch, where a century-old log cabin serves as the trailhead for the wonderful three-mile round-trip hike up to Delicate Arch, which, as a freestanding crescent of rock perched at the brink of a deep canyon, is by far the most impressive arch in the park.
The road continues on to the Devil's Garden trailhead, from which an easy one-mile walk leads to a view of the astonishing 306-foot span of Landscape Arch, now too perilously slender to approach more closely. Arches' only campground ($15; water only available mid-March to Oct) is across from the trailhead, 24 of its 52 sites are first-come first-served, and are usually taken by early morning, while the rest can be reserved March– Oct only, between four and 180 days in advance ( 518/885-3639 or 1-877/444-6777, www.recreation.gov ).