Arches National Park

To celebrate the warmer temperatures, a friend and I decided to spend a Saturday in Arches National Park near Moab. I've long since decided that you can't really see a national park from a car, so we decided to make the most of our time by taking the 7 mile "Devil's Garden" (inviting name, huh?) hike. We decided to do the full loop, which meant spending about half the hike on so-called "primitive trail." As it turns out, trudging through sand for two hours isn't as fun as it sounds.

It took a long time (4 1/2 hours) and was really strenuous - but we saw saw some great sights that we definitely couldn't have seen from a car.

I loved the distant snow-covered mountains that you could see from several vistas in the park.

Landscape Arch - the longest natural arch in the world.

More of the Landscape Arch

Part of the "trail"

This was the scariest part of the hike - you can't really see it in this picture, but there's quite a drop off on both sides of this rock fin.

The aptly named "Double O" Arch

The awesomely named "Dark Angel."

"The Windows" (these weren't part of the hike.)

More of the Arches landscape.