moab utah

Her View

Moab - Caywood's perspective

Moab: a city of mountain activity! We went to Moab for two national parks (Arches and Canyonland) - one full of unique above ground formations and the other complete with tons of hollow ground spots of all shapes and sizes. Arches was first, and I was excited to see the world-famous Delicate Arch, along with many others I didn’t know beforehand. We first stopped by the Balancing Rock, and climbed a bit on some of the random no-name formations. I couldn’t get over how sticky the rocks were - it was so easy not to slide! Minus the parts covered with slippery sand.

Other attractions in the huge park of Arches were the Parade of the Elephants, Delicate Arch, and Double Arch. Pictures never do mother nature enough justice, but check them out below anyways. In a few of them, you can even play “Where’s Feliks?”

Arches had so much to do that it was overwhelming. I thought that it was pretty well organized though. Lots of different spots to pull off and sight-see so the parking wasn’t too congested. My favorite spot at Arches was actually the Sand Dune Arch. It wasn’t necessarily the arch that impressed me the most, but the pathway to get to the arch. Walking through some of the smoothest sand I’ve ever felt between my toes, it was a gorgeous short walk to the arch.

Right after we finished Arches we drove less than 30 miles over to Canyonland. We passed Dead Horse Park on the way and were planning to do it, but when we found out it was a State Park we decided to skip it. (We have a National Park annual pass which gets us in to all NPs free - we bought the pass for $80 and so far have tallied park entrance fees up to $125.)

Canyonland was full of various shapes and sizes canyons. Neither of us could get over what it takes in nature to form these canyons. Really cool sights. Scary on the edge! I was also excited later to be reminded that the true story that the movie 127 Hours (with James Franco) actually happened within Canyonland National Park.

My advice from our experience:

1. Wear shoes with a good grip if you want to do any of the hiking trails. This really applies for any National Park.

2. If you really enjoy hiking and are in good shape, plan accordingly. For example, Feliks and I like to stick to the shorter hikes (30 minutes to three hours total trip). However if you like longer hikes, Arches has a great one that is 9 miles long each way.

His View

Moab - Feliks' perspective

The first two major national parks that we visited were Arches and Canyonland. First on the list, Arches National Park, was the one I was more excited about. I’ve seen the arches in postcards, commercials, and random advertisements. Thanks to our Annual National Park pass, we got in the park for free and saved $15. After that, the drive through the park was twisty and long, but the hills and valleys that we drove through were breathtaking. A lot of the park was park your car and take a hike to the sightseeing area. Some of the hikes were 30 minutes, while others were almost 4 hours. And while Caywood and I had gotten some practice at hiking, an 8 hour roundtrip hike was out of the question. The park was very cool, and they had specific stops for pictures of most of the famous formations. So even though we didn’t do the hikes to all of them, we still got to see the majority of them. The famous arch that I think of when someone says Arches National Park was one of those that was a four hour hike. I would expect you to need at least a whole weekend to hike to all of the different scenic formations, but we were able to drive the entire park and stop at most of the scenic views in four to five hours.

Canyonland National Park was pretty much across the street, and by pretty much I mean a 30 minute drive away. It offered different scenic views and different types of formations. I can’t say that it was better than Arches, and I can’t say that it was worse; they both were unique in their own ways. Again, this park had hikes and scenic views. I have to be honest that after a short while at looking at rocks, they started to lose their wow factor. I think that the drive from Denver to Arches through McInnis Canyon was just as spectacular, and took most of the wow feeling I had. We took lots of pictures but they don’t do the parks justice. It’s just one of those things you have to see for yourself.

Overall, the parks were cool. I probably would come back to camp for an extended period of time, but it’s one of those things - you can only stare at rocks for so long before you start realizing that they’re just rocks. I think the hiking would probably be more fun.

Balancing Rock @ Arches NP	Dewey Bridge
Arches NP	Dewey Bridge
Arches NP	Dewey Bridge
Arches NP	Dewey Bridge
Dewey Bridge	Arches NP
Canyonland NP
Dewey Bridge	Wilson Arch
Breakfast by the river	Dewey Bridge
Arches NP	Double Arches @ Arches NP
Can you see Feliks?	Double Arches @ Arches NP
Parade of Elephants @ Arches NP	Sand Dune Arch @ Arches NP
	Sand Dune Arch @ Arches NP
Sand Dune Arch @ Arches NP	Canyonland NP
Canyonland NP	Canyonland NP