Arches National Park

Overview & Quick Tips

Arches National Park contains the world’s largest concentration of gravity-defying sandstone arches. Theres over 2000 of these natural bridges, in addition to balanced rocks, columns, fins, pinnacles, towers and canyons. Improbable formations will have you scratching your head, wondering how the heck wind and rain conspired to sculpt them!

Detailed information

You can race around the Arches highlights in a day, but you will need a lot more time if you want to capture them in prime light. The majority of features need only a short hike to access, making the park a fun and popular location for families and photographers alike.

Where, when?
Sunset, sunrise and night! Be there then. Lighting makes the difference between a mediocre and great shot at the Arches. Some features are lit by morning rays, others are better at sunset. On clear day, between 10am and 3pm, with a high sun and harsh light it’s difficult to achieve for tops notch shots. Of course any time of day can be rewarding in the Arches when cloud formations and thunderstorms add drama to the sky. The Arches is also excellent for shooting star trails and the milky way.

The first thing you need to establish is the sunset and sunrise times for the period of your visit. Give yourself plenty of leeway either side of the published times, high-ground near your vantage point will delay the sun appearing over the horizon in the morning and hasten its setting in the evening.

Okay, so you’ve figured out when you need to stagger out of bed! Next you’ll have to decide which features you want to photograph, you can’t be everywhere at once, so barring numerous days in the Arches you’ll need to prioritise. For each day of your visit, pick one sunrise location, few morning features, a few afternoon locations, and one sunset location.
If you want to shoot the milky-way, check the moon phases and plan your arrival in Moab around the new-moon, for the darkest skies and brightest stars. You can find basic sun and moon info here: www.discovermoab.com/sunshine.htm
If you have only day in the Arches, for sunrise I’d walk though the North Window then turn back to shoot Turret Arch framed within. This is best lit from August 25 to April 15. At the end of the day, start the three mile hike to Delicate Arch no later than two hours before sunset, preferably three.
Here’s a list of possibilities, which of these to go for is down to personal preference. Search images online and see what inspires!

EARLY MORNING
Turret Arch through the North Window.
The Spectacles – the backside of the North and South Windows.
Double Arch – two linked arches a short drive from the Windows.
Landscape Arch – the parks longest rock arch, spans 290 ft / 88m.
The Three Gossips– a tall rock formation with three ‘heads’.
Sheep Rock– a rectangular tower near the three Gossips
The Great Wall– a panoramic sandstone cliff.
Wolfe Ranch– an old log cabin near the Delicate Arch trailhead.
Cache Valley – a 4X4 trail
Moab Fault – geological fault line.

LATE AFTERNOON
Delicate Arch—the iconic feature of the park!
Tower Arch-allow 2 to 3 hours for the return hike
Balanced Rock – a large rock balanced on a tall column. 1 minute from the car park.
The Windows – huge arches and rock structures, easy strolls.
Park Avenue – 2 mile return trail through a wide avenue of stone cliffs.
Courthouse Towers – tall and impressive stone towers
Petrified Dunes – rock humps, once dunes.
The Garden of Eden – an outcrop of rock towers
Fiery Furnace – tall rock columns
Skyline Arch – high atop rocks in the Devils Garden
Devils Garden – a great area for longer hikes. varied scenery between sandstone fins.

Delicate Arch Info
Delicate Arch is the most photographed feature in the Arches National Park. Allow an hour to hike from the parking lot to the Delicate, it’s uphill most of the way, there is little shade, and it can be scorching hot in summer, so prepare appropriately.
If you want the classic shot of Delicate lit up at sunset with snow on the distant mountains, come from mid March to mid April—earlier only the arch rim is lit at sunset, as the sun is sets too far south to light the front. Come later and the sun sets behind a rock, casting the bottom of the arch in a dark shadow.
Delicate Arch is a poplar location, at times it’s almost impossible to get a photo of the formation without visitors in the shot. You may want to shoot several frames from a tripod and later use photoshop to stack the photos into layers and then erase portions of each later to produce a image devoid of people.
If it’s a suitable night, wait until dark and shoot the milky way curving around the arch. Bring a flashlight for the return hike. Delicate Arch is aligned along a bearing of 80 degrees, you can check the relative position of the milky way on a specific time and time with an app, or . You’ll also want to shoot around the new moon for the darkest sky.
To shoot the moon through the Delicate Arch, you don’t have much room to play with, ideally you’ll want the moon to be at a bearing of 116 degrees, and 6 degrees above the horizon—you’ll be shooting from level ground then. As the moon moves shifts from this location, you’ll have to do a little rock climbing to frame it within the arch. You can check moon angles with a program such as Heavenly-Opportunity or The Photographer’s Ephemeris.

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