The Adventures of Matt and Stacey: Arches and Canyonlands, Part 1

For the first time since starting our trip, we camped in a private campground while we were visiting Arches. All the sites in the park had been claimed by early January when we started booking our trip, so instead we camped in the town of Moab at a small tent-only place called Up the Creek Campground. It was quite a luxury to be able to take a hot shower anytime you wanted and to wash your dishes with real soap in an actual sink! The downside was that our encounters with Cottonwood trees were far from over. The campsite was beautifully shaded with Cottonwoods, however the wafting fluff was everywhere, much more so than Zion. Here's a video from the parking lot:

Cottonwood fluff aside, we enjoyed our stay in Moab. The town has billed itself as a sort of extreme sports adventure Mecca, with off-road jeep tours, mountain biking, zip lining, sky diving, and canyoneering guide companies almost everywhere you look. There are also a lot of cute shops and restaurants, too, so it was nice to be just a short walk from it all.

Matt went out to explore the trails on his unicycle when we first got to Moab. On our second day, we decided to drive the main road into Arches to get oriented and do all the short hikes that we could fit into our first day. One of the things we noticed immediately about Arches was the crowds. We waited in a long line of cars to enter the gates (for the first time on this trip, remarkably), and there were lots of people out enjoying the park. We made our way north through from the entrance, stopping for hikes at the Windows Section and up to Sand Dune and Broken Arch. We skipped the 3-miler to the park's most famous Delicate Arch after seeing huge crowds there from an overlook. We explored lots of other less-famous arches in relative solitude.

Double Arch with some park visitors for scale

From an overlook, the famous Delicate Arch and associated crowds of tiny people

Cool colors in the earth on the way down from the Delicate Arch overlook

Princes' plume blooming along the trail

We had Broken Arch all to ourselves

Tapestry Arch, too

Best lizard yet -- look at those spots!

After a full day in Arches, we decided to drive over to Canyonlands National Park for a picnic dinner. We had originally scheduled a few nights in this park, but had to cut them out to make everything else fit in our timeline. Since Canyonlands is only about 45 mins away from Arches, we figured it would be a shame not to at least see it while we were there.

Canyonlands is divided into three zones: Island in the Sky (to the north), The Needles (to the east), and The Maze (to the west). Island in the Sky is said to be the most vehicle-friendly, with convenient overlooks into majestic canyons. The Needles area is slightly less developed but offers extensive trails down into the canyons, while The Maze is mostly wilderness without roads or trails. We drove to Island in the Sky for our picnic dinner, and right away it was a very different experience than Arches. The park felt completely deserted, and we hardly saw anyone else while we were there. Aside from a couple of visitor's centers and some primitive bathrooms, there are no facilities in the park, so that may have had something to do with the lack of people.

We had our pick of picnic tables, so we chose one with breathtaking views of the canyons below and made dinner. The sunset cast vibrant, rosy light over the canyons below us, and it was one of the more memorable sunsets we've seen on the trip so far.