The Ultimate Destination: Saving the Best for Last.

I was more than 2,500 miles into my three-week circle tour of the southwest when I finally climbed the steep switchbacks that earn you access to Arches National Park.  I  wasn’t jaded or desensitized by the natural marvels that had struck me speechless and left me gaping in awe all across the region, but I was no longer easy to impress, and I was pretty sure no scene or setting could capture a superlative status from among the roadside memories I had already accumulated.
I was wrong.

It was no simple writing task to concede the title that marks this current page.  I spent my professional life striving to be a fair and impartial witness, honing and crafting words to convey fairness and accuracy.  And in my humble but thoroughly considered opinion that is what I’ve done here.  This unimaginably boundless, savage, serene, and timeless landscape was the ultimate, crowning geological experience of my trip.

Cool Running

You might recall from the previous entry to this travelogue that in my approach to Arches I was in “escape mode” just ahead of a cold front that was pursuing southward. I had already been snowed on twice in the afternoon, and I wasn’t confident that a dry and comfortable first night awaited me in the park’s campground. As we coward’s are inclined to do, I opted for discretion and wiggle-room while I thought the problem through. Scarlet and I blazed right past the entrance to the national park and drove five miles farther south to the Colorado River, which we crossed and found ourselves in the small but hospitable town of Moab. A little more than five-thousand people call Moab home, but about as many more can spend the night or the weekend there in hotel/motel/BnB comfort. If the weather didn’t go my way, I was at the door of refuge… pricey, but salvation nonetheless.

I checked my NOAA weather radio on the bike and then wandered the shops for a while, replenishing some supplies and watching the northern horizon. Because of the snow threat, I hadn’t stopped for lunch, so I decided to have a hot and early supper before getting one more report from NOAA with time left to either rent a room or to ride back to the campground at Arches before dark. In fairly short order I found myself sated by hot barbecue and fries, and encouraged by the U.S. Weather Service. The cold front had stalled and the threat of any snowfall for Arches was discounted.

I was back on the bike by 4:30 and pitching my tent in “The Devil’s Garden” by five. I laid out a ground cloth, a foam sleeping pad, and a heat-reflective foil survival blanket under my 20-degree rated down mummy bag in which I stowed a half-dozen chemical hand-warmer packets. And I congratulated myself on my clever preparations for the night. The praise was sadly premature.

(Days 15 & 16) It had been the coldest night of my two weeks on the road. I had dressed for a warm sleep in three layers of insulation–that included the knit cap I’m wearing here. But when I turned on NOAA radio Sunday morning, it was twenty-eight degrees, and the sun had been up for hours. Campsite coffee never tasted so good… or warmed so deeply.

What’s in a Name?

Interestingly, the largest arch in Arches National Park is not the most visited or the most photographed landmark on display. Nor is it the biggest in the world. Landscape Arch measures almost 100 yards from right-to-left, base-to-base. Just level the ground beneath it, and you could lay out a regulation football gridiron there. The arch’s midpoint would be 80 feet above the fifty-yard line. It is genuinely impressive, but China is home to four certified natural arches, each of which is significantly bigger.

Visited somewhat more frequently than The Landscape Arch is the gracefully sculpted formation called The Delicate Arch, which has become the representative icon and symbol of national park that is its home. The bold and stately edifice stands nearly 52 feet tall on the rim of a steep canyon wall and has graced Utah’s license plates and a U.S. postage stamp proudly commemorating Utah’s statehood.

But there’s more to Arches than just “arches.” Scattered over this hiker’s sandstone paradise are thousands of towers, pinnacles, hoodoos, natural bridges, buttes, canyons, mesas, and spires, many more than any one person can imagine.

The Oh-So-Brief Tour

(Click on the link here, and then click on the image to start the video.)

A comprehensive review of the more popular attractions at Arches would be journalistically deficient if it didn’t give notice to one famous column whose anatomical reference will be left to your own deduction.
(In this case, it’s my verdict that “size” actually does matter. This is a 100-foot spire. And its name rhymes with “palace.”)

I spent two memorable and inspiring full days at Arches National Park. And I threw my leg over Scarlet’s saddle on the morning of the third day pleased and happy not only with that culminating experience but with every destination and side trip of the entire three-week adventure. I had invested countless hours over the preceding winter researching and planning my route and my itinerary for the ride. There were some well considered changes to the plan along the way–and a couple of unscheduled, unavoidable, and uncomfortable hiccups.
But even today, fourteen years later (March of 2025), as I put some updates and edits into this memoir, I believe as I did on that chilly morning, riding out of the Arches, back to Moab, and onward to the south and then east to my journey’s end: I wouldn’t change a bit of it. Even the gale winds of New Mexico and the misadventure of the damaged tire back in Nevada had transformed themselves into the serendipity delights of meeting new people and discovering opportunities.

One more such episode lay ahead on The Last Leg: Heading for Home.