Since dogs aren’t allowed on Arches National Park trails and the park hosts 1 million visitors each year (approximately ½ of which seem to be there right now...), we decided to try a hike outside the park.
Hidden Valley Trail is just 3 miles south of Moab on 191. The trail gains 680 feet in elevation quickly through switchbacks over large red and tan boulders (nicknamed Barney Rubble). Even though we started in the morning, the trail was already burning up and Guinness was wishing she hadn’t worn her black coat.
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| Nearing the top of the switchback trail |
Once we reached the top, the trail flattens out and meanders through a hot, dry valley flanked by high rocky cliffs. Others have described seeing petroglyphs on this trail, but even though we had binoculars out and scoured some rocks along the trail, we weren’t lucky enough to see any. We found shade underneath some scattered Juniper trees and overhanging rocks before heading back down the sun-baked switchbacks.
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| Hidden Valley |
We decided to head back to camp along the CO river to cool off – if that’s possible in the desert – and to try Arches for some sunset pictures. It turned out we weren’t the only ones with sunset pictures on the agenda. We headed toward Turret Arch and The Windows but were disappointed to be greeted by a desert rainstorm. We waited it out and the clouds began to break up.
The rain ended, the clouds blew over, and the sunset light was truly phenomenal. We found a perch behind Turret Arch with a view of The Windows if we climbed high enough. The few pictures we were able to snap without the .5 million other visitors happened in a window of about 2 milliseconds. In all seriousness though, there was a very good reason we weren’t the only ones enjoying the soft evening light reflecting off of the red arches.
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| Turret Arch from below with one of The Windows in the distance |
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