TRAVEL

Utah’s Best National Park for Family-Friendly Exploring

A one-day adventure not to miss

Have you had the chance to visit any of the 63 national parks in the United States?

This summer I was able to check off 5 more after visiting Utah’s Big 5 — Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Capitol Reef.

All of them were unique, but one stood out as an excellent and accessible park to enjoy with your family — Arches National Park.

Here is what we did.

Morning Access

If you’re visiting Arches National Park, you will want to enter the lottery.

As a result of the pandemic and the growing popularity of visiting our national parks, to limit crowds, select parks or walking trails require a separate entry ticket.

When our family was planning the trip, we paid a $2 ticket fee and secured a 7 a.m. entrance time.

It’s a good idea to pay attention to the lottery schedule because you often need to submit your information online a few months before your trip. This doesn’t include the actual park entrance fee. That’s another $30 per car or you can pay $80 for a yearly national park pass. Since we were visiting 5 national parks in Utah, the yearly pass made the most sense.

Fortunately, the hotel we were staying at in Moab was a mile from the park entrance so getting there early wasn’t a problem.

I’m so glad we chose the early entrance time and got moving.

The drive into the park was unreal with the sunrise. The lighting seemed to hit the rock formations just right. I couldn’t get enough of hanging my camera outside the window while my husband drove slowly so I could capture a shot.

With early access into the park, it wasn’t crowded and many of our pictures look like no one else was there. It felt like we had the park to ourselves in certain places.

It made the experience so much more enjoyable.

Parking Close To Arch Sites

I was amazed at how many iconic arches and trail entrances were very close to parking lots.

There was no issue pulling up and jumping out of the car to walk to what we wanted to see. Getting in early to the park I’m sure helped with that as well.

Our first stop was at the Windows Section getting to see both the North and South Windows.

Again, the morning lighting made for some beautiful pictures.

The trails were well taken care of by the park staff. You can see nice wide rock steps in the picture above.

I saw individuals of all generations making the climb to get their picture in the window.

What was interesting was the view from behind the North Window as well. With my two adventurous kids, we walked away from the crowd and made our way to the other side to get a different vantage point seen below.

The photos don’t do the landscape justice.

The mammoth size of the window arch makes you wonder how in the world it maintains its shape.

There are over 2,000 documented arches in the park, and they were formed over thousands of years from the right combination of sandstone, clay, salt, and rain.

The rock formations will continue to change over the thousands of years to come.

Trails With Multiple Hiking Options

Devil’s Garden Trailhead had multiple different arches to view with varying distances to hike.

This also was the most popular place to visit. When we got there the parking lot was almost full, and it made it tough trying to find a spot.

With our two kids, the hike to Landscape Arch was far enough at 1.8 miles roundtrip.

But there were other more difficult trails to take such as the hike to Double O Arch with narrow ledges and drop-offs.

What is interesting is at the start of Devil’s Garden you get to walk through some narrow rocks. The kids had fun running up a hill of sand and squeezing into a crack.

I even gave it a try, and the perspective looking out was a unique one.

But in this small crevice was about all the shade you could find.

Soon after we found ourselves hiking in the hot sun, and I felt grateful to have enough water to drink. The August heat was intense.

What I enjoyed about these hikes is there were several trails you could take. As soon as we made it to the landscape arch, our kids were ready to turn back though. About that time it was getting close to 11, and everyone was starting to get hungry from the early morning start.

I was amazed at the beautiful views from walking only a short distance. Whether you are a family with little kids or have a disability preventing you from walking far, the park does make it easier for you to see some incredible sites without venturing far.

Final Thoughts

Simply riding around in the car, you can see many of the arches on display. We did a lot of this after stopping at a few destinations and hiking around.

Now after visiting I can understand the popularity of this particular park. You can tell it was designed well to allow as many different people the opportunity to enjoy these unique and photogenic places.

With my 7 and 5-year-old this was an excellent park to explore. Getting there early allowed us to make a day of it, and we even had the evening to enjoy the pool at the hotel.

If you have limited time on your trip to Utah, I highly recommend making a day to visit Arches National Park.

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