Two years ago we hiked in to see Tower Arch. Located in the remote area of Klondike Bluffs inside Arches National Park, the trail had a little bit of everything. Nice climb up the rocks out of the gate, then a descent into the valley only to climb out on the far side through extremely thick soft sand. Along the way, we had a great view of the Marching Men. Then up more sand and into a bunch of fins only to look up and there's the arch. We hiked out that day in the late afternoon and sat up on the final grouping of rocks and watched as the sun went down. We then had to scramble down the rocks in the dark to get back to the jeep. It was a great hike and one that we have talked about often with other travelers when they said they were coming in this direction.
This year we decided to take the back way into the arch. A known 4-wheel drive road that is marked on the Arches map took us over slick rock and deep sand to the parking area that was a short 1/2 mile from the actual arch. Along the way, we encountered a second large arch, Parallel, that is partly hidden and hard to spot if you didn’t know to look for it.
I am not a “thrill seeker” by any means, and Bob did a great job of keeping the Jeep on a pretty even keel for the most part. I only got out a couple of times, someone had to take pictures after all.
A stop at Eye of the Whale on the road out, and then we watched as the almost full Hunters Moon started to rise over the red rocks. Another beautiful end to a wonderful day.
