Thanks, guys!
How were the crowds? I haven't been to Arches in a few years but it wasn't too bad in October when I went. I'm guessing that November is even less crowded.
I hear that next year they will be requiring visitors to preregister so they can give you a time to enter the park and tell you how long you can stay! I understand Devil's Garden has become a nightmare.
We were there twice this past weekend - once with my parents, then two days later on our own in the early morning. The first day, we got there around 11:15. The line to get in took about 30-35 minutes to get through, but the crowds weren’t horrible once inside the park. Parking was definitely full at most spots, but you could still find a space or two at all areas. The next time, no one was there at the entrance, and the amount of hikers at Delicate Arch was comparatively extremely light (the benefit of going on Sunday morning in Utah, and in late November). And what hikers were there at the arch were very considerate, taking their pictures and getting immediately out of the way.
With the amount of people it sounds Arches has been getting, the reservation system seems, I dunno, like an unenforceable pipe dream? I’d wonder if a shuttle system would be more beneficial much like what Zion, Yosemite, Rocky Mountain, etc. use, but maybe there’s not enough space to build a parking lot to support the volume.
My wife and I have used an annual pass for each of the last three years, and hot damn if we are going to be spending that much money on it and not getting our use out of it... Definitely worth it with the amount of parks we like to hit (and with visiting Crater Lake 1-2 times a year as well since it’s only two hours away from us).