This content was created by Dr. Noah St John. This content was uploaded by Dr. Noah St John. This is a YouTube travel vlog titled "Is This the Most Beautiful Place in America?" (created 2024-09-04). The excerpt is an on-location, conversational commentary between Dr. Noah St John and a companion (his wife/Speaker A) as they visit Arches National Park—specifically the Delicate Arch viewpoint—at sunrise. They excitedly describe the scenery (moon, sunrise, blue rock, switchbacks), document their hike up steep slickrock to Delicate Arch, remark on crowds and difficulty, and intersperse personal reflections (including a metaphor comparing the hike to success). The tone is informal, enthusiastic, and descriptive.
Chapters
Oh my gosh!
Oh my God!
Look at that!
My God, it's just—
that is just breathtaking.
Every, every round, every corner, your jaw just drops.
Yes, it does. Oh wow, wow, wow!
Look at that!
Wow! Oh, look at that! I know, I got that. Whoa! Wow, wow!
All right, look at this. We just got in America the Beautiful Pass. Perfect, I picked the right lane. For once, yay! And we are here. Look at just look at the moon. Look at the look at the light on the rocks.
It's absolutely breathtaking.
And now we're going up these incredible switchbacks here, which I did not know were here. And I'm holy cow!
Look at this.
Just look.
Oh my God! God!
This is unlike anything on Earth.
Unlike anything. Oh my gosh! Wow! Wow! Look at that! Wow!
Wow!
This is incredible.
These rocks.
Yeah.
We learned all about it at the visitor center yesterday. Ooh, look at that!
I know I got that.
Whoa! Wow!
Wow!
We're driving in at the perfect time.
Yeah.
Look at the light. It's perfect.
Oh my God! Well, we are going straight up here.
It.
We're going straight up the mountain. Whoa, there's the blue. They call it Blue Rock. Yeah. Wow, my God, is that gorgeous. Wow. Oh, look at the moon.
Whoa, look how high we are. Yeah, just going up. Oh, there's the Blue Rock right there.
Oh my God, look at that.
This lighting is perfect right now.
Oh my God, look how red!
Whoa! Wow!
This is—
oh geez, this is amazing!
Wow! Oh my gosh, is it just beautiful!
Wow, we're literally here at the perfect time of day right now.
Look at that! Wow, Noah!
Geez!
Oh my gosh!
Oh my God, look at that! My God, it's just—
that is just breathtaking.
Every, every round, every corner, your jaw just drops.
Yes, it does. Oh wow, look at that. Wow. Oh my God.
Whoa. Oh my God.
Wow, just keeps going. Yeah, it does. Oh my gosh! Wow!
Oh, there's the three sisters. I think they're called the three gossips. Yeah, the three gossips. See them on the top there?
Yeah, they're called my three kids.
The three gossips. Isn't that sweet?
Wow! Look at the one way up there. Oh wow!
Here we are at the Delicate Arch Viewpoint, and we are at sunrise. There it is, sunrise right there beyond the mountains. We're about to get to Delicate. There's the moon behind us, so we got sunrise and the moon shot. We've been planning this trip for months. Here we are, baby.
Gosh, isn't that beautiful?
There she is.
Hey!
Here we are. Okay, we have the lower Delicate Arch viewpoint and the upper. We're going to the upper because there's sunrise and there's the moon still. We still got the moon. Isn't that amazing?
Yeah.
We got both the sun and the moon at the same time. That is awesome. Hey baby, honey.
Hey.
All right, so we are going to the Upper Delicate Arch Viewpoint, but we have a great view from right here. Sunrise. So there it is, there's Arches— I mean, excuse me, Delicate. We're in Arches.
Yeah.
Right there. Oh, you're blocking your own face, honey.
Oh.
All right, we're, we're getting there. We're just taking our time, enjoying every, every minute of this.
There's the moon.
And there's the moon. There's sunrise behind me. All right, let's go. We just had the beautiful sunrise here. Look at that shot.
Yeah, that is breathtaking.
Yeah, look. And there is Delicate right there, right there. Wow, we're gonna be hiking that very soon, shortly, very soon, shortly. Yeah, this is a dream come true for a national parks fan like— okay, look at the sunrise has risen. Look at that. Okay, we just got a beautiful shot of sunrise with the moon, and I know we're totally backlit, but I just love that sun right there.
Yeah, me too.
All right, now we're going to rotate a little bit. Come with me. All right, now there's Delicate.
Sweet, right?
And we will be hiking to it. Right there. Yeah, and we still have the moon. Yeah, and the sun's right in my eye. So right now this is just a beautiful—
the moon is—
there it is, you got it! There it is right there. Yeah, well, I love this selfie stick here. One more rotation. Okay, I'm gonna get delicate one more time. Isn't this fun? And there we go, we are about to go. Okay, we just did a very strenuous climb here. At the beginning of Delicate Arch hike. Very steep and very difficult. I mean, it's, you know, well marked and everything, but it's basically straight down. Or straight up in this case. Okay, so we are just enjoying it. We're not having any Not in any rush. And here we are, some absolutely incredible, beautiful, all-natural rock formations. And, uh, weather's perfect, not crowded at all, perfect time of year to come, and absolutely perfect. I want to get this shot in the background here of that amazing rock formation there. Awesome. See the blue in the mountains? The blue rock. Isn't that just incredible? Okay, we have a beautiful panorama here, 360 degrees.
Absolutely amazing.
Okay, well, we just did a quick costume change. It's getting pretty warm already. Uh, it's only 9:09 AM and it's still very hot. So why am I so healthy? She affirms. And yes, this is awesome and perfect, and it's a dream come true to be here at Arches National Park with my best friend, my beautiful wife. Okay, well, we just climbed our first slickrock. It was slick, hence the name. Now we're going up this incredibly steep slickrock, which I've never done before in my life. Have you?
No.
All right, so here we are. It is, uh, very challenging here. Thank goodness for these sticks. I love these sticks. Beautiful day, perfect weather. It's still very crowded. I mean, if this is not crowded, I'd hate to see crowded.
Yeah.
There's a heck of a lot of people here. Well, we're I don't think we're even halfway up this slickrock. This is— you really can't get a sense of perspective from the video, but holy cow, it's very steep. This is a really cool little shot here, a little ravine. It doesn't get any easier. We are at Delicate Arch. We made it.
We made it.
We made it. Wow, we were under the arch right there. Walked around that. I gotta tell you, pretty scary. That is a long, long drop down there. Wow, very slick and very deep. All right, well, we just did the Delicate Arch hike.
Yeah.
Which was easily the most challenging thing physically that I've ever done in my life. Also mentally, it was definitely a mental challenge because, uh, first of all, the hike was, uh, much harder than they led us to believe. Uh, the slickrock was very steep. It was, uh—
It was well worth it though.
And then when we got to the top, the canyon there is really very, very steep drops, so there is not much room there for anything or anyone. It was very crowded. Um, and this is supposed to be the not crowded time, so I don't know what the crowded time is, but this was, uh, it was a heck of a lot of people up there. Anyway, it was very worth it. So now for the rest of my life, I can say that I hiked Delicate Arch. I did the Delicate Arch hike.
You did.
I know, but you do everything anyway. I tend to not do— I tend to sit there and read books. So me to have doing something physical was big. That was huge for me. That was a huge milestone.
That was huge.
Anyway, huge. There it is. So we're very, uh, thrilled, and now I'm gonna remember that forever, and I'll say, you know what, okay, this might be hard, but I hiked Delicate Arch.
We did it!
We did it. I just want to say one more thing, uh, here at the Delicate Arch hike. It lulls you into a false sense of security because the first part is pretty easy, pretty flat, And then once you get to that slickrock, it's, it's really hard. And so you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. So that's a lot like success, you know. Sometimes it looks, uh, you know, you get a good momentum going, then it gets hard for a while, and then you have the payoff at the end. So that's what we got. And anyway, if you come—
Beautiful.
If you come here to Moab, it's definitely worth it.
