Unlike Capitol Reef, which is a small park, this one is a big and popular one. Not only is there an entrance gate as expected, but you also need a “timed entry vehicle pass” to even get as far as the visitor center. This was a miss in my planning, as this is National Park #15 on this trip, and only the second one that requires a timed entry pass, the first one being Carlsbad Caverns.
When we arrived in Moab on the 22nd, and started doing the final planning for our visit to Arches the next day, the website said that passes were not released for the next day, but were available for that day. So we ended-up getting a 3PM entry pass, and unexpectedly did the basics then (visitor center talk with a park ranger, park movie, and a portion of the driving tour with stops at the viewpoints, with the noteworthy ones being Balanced Rock, Double Arch and Delicate Arch seen from the viewpoints.
We found out from the park ranger that 60% of entry passes are released ahead of time, and once sold out, the remaining 40% become available at 7PM local for the next day. So we snatched up an 8AM vehicle entry pass for the 23rd.
In any case, the park, as the names says, is about stone arches that are naturally created over time by the forces of erosion. The park claims that there are over 2000 of them inside the boundaries of the park
During our second visit, our focus was on hiking so we drove straight to Devils garden Trailhead, from which we hiked to Landscape Arch, Tapestry arch, Broken Arch and Sand Dune Arch. We had grander plans, but when one of the trails essentially turned to mountain climbing, we turned around (as did many others).
Once we were done with hiking, we drove an unpaved road named Salt Valley that goes deep inside a remote section of the park. It was fun, and nothing compared to our recent Cerro Gordo experience… This was our first quiet time in the park, as everything else up to then involved lots of people on the trails, and competition and the trailheads to secure a parking spot. Its easy to imagine what a mess that place would be without timed entry passes to limit daily entries into the park.