Hiking in Arches National Park on the trail to Landscape Arch and beyond to Double O Arch and the Primitive Trail in Devil’s Garden. The first part of the trail is very, very obvious and there is a continuous stream of people coming and going. The primitive part of the trail is a bit less traveled and there is a larger gap between run ins with people. It also happens to be a relatively long trail. It took most of the day for me and the hubby to complete the whole loop.

 

 

This trail is a whole lot more than just Landscape Arch. It has a whole host of arches, many of which I forgot the names of. The small one above is fun for kids. There is a ton of soft sand around it and you can walk through it to the other side.

 

 

As a photographer, I have a thing about having a level horizon. However, I live in an area where the horizon rarely looks level and I’m forced to unnaturally tilt the world. I didn’t correct this photo and you can see how everything is tilted up toward the mountains. Most of the time, I can’t help myself and I flatten it out and it looks more correct, but I know it’s wrong.

 

 

It was a beautiful, cloudy day, and it eventually started raining. Which was great right up until we were soaked. It was slightly less fun at that point. This hike isn’t recommended when it is raining, but we didn’t really expect rain when we started and were half way when it started so we just continued on. We happened to have our rain gear with us though since it also happens to be our winter gear. It started to flood a little in some areas and the slick rock lit up as the water sheeting off of it caught the little sun that there was. It was a really beautiful experience, and the quiet moodiness of it was really unique.

 

 

 

There are some really steep spots in this hike that requires a little bit of a scramble and challenges my mild fear of heights. It really isn’t that bad though. If I didn’t have that pesky fear of heights thing, it would be a breeze. We luckily ran into those obstacles between downpours and they weren’t slick.

 

 

It’s really worth the views though. Hiking in, around, and over the fins in this area is really entertaining and tends to make for good photos.

 

 

This was one of the last pictures I took this day. I was a complete downpour at the time and my camera was getting wet though the rain cover and I didn’t have anything dry to dry it off with. There were some really stunning pictures I missed because I didn’t want to get my camera any wetter. I’ll just have to hike this again sometime.