Today was another beautiful day packed with wonderful sights. I left Green River and traveled east along interstate 70 before turning south to go to Arches National Park. This is one of my favorite National Parks but I had not visited since 2007. When visiting these parks I have to remember that they are just stops on my way home rather than destinations. Arches is famous for Delicate Arch, which is the image used on Utah’s car license plates. To get to the arch is a 7 mile round-trip hike over some rough, hilly terrain and, when I did it in 2007, it was boiling hot. Today, the weather would have been perfect but I simply did not have time. Nevertheless, I did some short hikes to some spectacular arches and other features.

This is Park Avenue in Arches NP. It is named for the resemblance to a street of skyscrapers and rocks that look like people.

Balanced Rock is also a well known feature of Arches NP. Note the person on the right of the base to get an idea of scale.

The Windows section of the park contains a number of huge arches and newly forming arches. These are the North and South Windowsand this is Double Arch. Again, the people give it scale.

After leaving Arches I traveled back to Interstate 70 along a scenic byway that closely follows the Colorado river through its spectacular canyon. This is best seen in the video but here is one photo to give you an idea.

Once back on I-70 it is pretty boring until you get into Colorado and east of Grand Junction. At this point the interstate also follows the Colorado river and its spectacular canyon. This can only be seen on the video as stopping to take photos on an interstate highway is not be a good idea. I ended a terrific day in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

Today’s map and very scenic video are here. This video is almost 15 minutes long so  play from the start to get some ideas on seeing the good stuff if that’s too much.