Overview
About Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint
Heads up
- The arch is about a mile away and looks small without zoom.
Map
Where it is
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Arches Tour Guide
Your drive to Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Arches National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Arches audio tourRecorded for this place
Delicate Arch Viewpoints“You're nearing the Delicate Arch Viewpoints, a quick way to see the famous arch without the long hike. Choose the level, wheelchair-accessible lower path for a brief look.”
Plays as you drive up to Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint in the Parkwolf Arches Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Delicate Arch and Wolfe Ranch
- The Dark Streaks on Sandstone
- Shrimp Waiting for Rain
- The Desert's Living Skin
- 35 audio storiesacross Arches’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Bighorn Sheep, Pronghorn, Raven, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 28 trails, 41 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“I can’t believe how helpful this app is and how interesting the information is for each highlight along the Arches Scenic Drive! This is the first park I’ve used it in.”
Guide
More about Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint
The easy view, without the hikeLower Delicate Arch Viewpoint is a short, level path to a distant look at Delicate Arch on its…
Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint is a short, level path to a distant look at Delicate Arch on its sandstone wall, about a mile away. The route is 200 feet round trip, on a hard-surfaced, wide path that is wheelchair accessible. It is the easiest way to see the famous opening without the three-mile hike, though from here the arch looks small.
Keep the two stops straightThe lower and upper viewpoints share the road-end parking area, 1.
The lower and upper viewpoints share the road-end parking area, 1.2 miles past the Delicate Arch Trailhead. The upper viewpoint is a separate, steeper half-mile round trip. To hike to the arch itself, start at Wolfe Ranch instead. If that lot fills on very busy days, the viewpoint lot can be used as overflow parking, but it adds a mile along the road each way to reach the trailhead.
What you are looking atThe arch's opening is 46 feet high and 32 feet wide, the largest freestanding arch in the park.
The arch's opening is 46 feet high and 32 feet wide, the largest freestanding arch in the park. From the lower view, it sits on a distant sandstone rim rather than filling the frame as it does from the close-up trail.
The arch had other namesBefore Delicate Arch stuck, the arch was also called Cowboy's Chaps, Old Maid's Bloomers and…
Before Delicate Arch stuck, the arch was also called Cowboy's Chaps, Old Maid's Bloomers and Salt Wash Arch. The word “Delicate” first appeared in a 1934 account that described how finely the sandstone had been chiseled.
Bring the far view closerA phone's zoom helps pick out the opening, but leave some of the wall in frame so the arch's…
A phone's zoom helps pick out the opening, but leave some of the wall in frame so the arch's perch still reads. Binoculars make the opening easier to distinguish without zooming in on a screen.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Arches
14 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
10 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
610 sightingsRavenMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
188 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
51 sightingsPrairie DogMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
15 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 6 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Arches. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
