One last morning in Arches before heading home and we couldn’t even stay in bed until the sun was up! After playing with night exposures for a while it was early to bed and then rolling out to Turret Arch before the sunrise. One of the guys we’d met while photographing Double Arch had said there was a great view of Turret Arch looking through North Window and with that in mind we set off.

Turret arch seen through North Window, pre sunrise

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After our night out in Moab and a warm comfy hotel room the last thing we really wanted to do was to get up early! Our original plan had been to get up, drive the 2.5hrs down the Needles district of Canyonlands and hike in to Druid Arch. Well, after the disappointment of the Syncline Loop and not really wanted to waste 5hrs driving we decided to hit the Murphy Loop in the Islands in the Sky district and what a great choice!

Looking down into the valley with the trail visible

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Once again we rolled into camp in the dark and were up and out of camp before the sunrise. This morning’s early destination was the much vaunted Mesa Arch. It really is an amazing sight to see and much like Delicate Arch a very popular location.

Mesa Arch at sunrise

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Arches National Park in Utah is without a doubt one of the most awe inspiring places I’ve ever been to. With a four-day weekend over the American Thanksgiving, and having already gorged on turkey for Canadian Thanksgiving Jamie and I decided to take a mini-vacation and head out to the desert.

The drive out from Denver was decent and holiday traffic wasn’t too bad and we left right after work heading up and over the mountain passes and down into the desert. My first thought after passing through Grand Junction and over the Colorado/Utah line was “wow, look at all those stars!” and my second though was “I really should have filled up in GJ” (c: Fortunately after only 30min with the gas light on we rolled into a Shell station and I put 17.2 gallons into an 18 gallon tank!

Camping in Arches was easy to find, there is one campground in the entire park and it was only about half full as we cruised through at 10:30pm. The vacation had a few goals

1. Relax and be outside without worrying about summits
2. Enjoy the warm(er) weather
3. Get some really good photographs

Since #3 generally requires sunrise or sunset I had looked up the good times and locations for Arches and Canyonlands and the first on our list was Double Arch, at sunrise.

Double Arch before sunrise

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