In recent summers, visitors want to see towering red rock arches and the carved canyons of one of America’s most iconic landscapes. Since 2022, Arches National Park has required timing entry permission for vehicles arriving during peak seasons and daytime hours to reduce congestion and traffic congestion. But this year, the system has taken a seasonal pause.
The National Park Service announced in early July that it had suspended its timing entry requirements by August 27, 2025. This means that for the rest of the summer, travelers can visit Utah Park from 7am to 4pm without securing spots in advance.
“The visit to Moab falls a little during the peak of summer heat, traditionally,” Karen Henker, who oversaw the public relations at Arches and Canyonlands National Park, told Afar. “When the park is not busy, there is no need for a system to manage visitor arrivals and prevent busy parking. So far, that has proven true.
The National Park Service says a temporary suspension of time entry requirements is tied to natural dips during peak summer heat. The park’s July and August temperatures frequently rise above 100 degrees, with far fewer tourists in its windows compared to spring and fall.
Without the same level of vehicle congestion, park officials say that the permit system is simply not necessary during this stretch, and if they pause it, the park will give the opportunity to study how the visit flows without restrictions.
Why did Arches National Park introduce timing entries in the first place? In 2021, visits to Arches National Park surged to over 1.8 million people a year, with cars often escaping at the entrance due to a lack of parking. The intense traffic has put a strain on the park’s natural resources, and reduced the visitor’s experience.
“By implementing a temporary timing entry reservation system, our goal is to better spread visits throughout the day to reduce traffic congestion and visitor crowds. We believe this will create a high-quality experience while maximizing visitor access.” “In addition, we will use data collected from this pilot to not only adapt and improve this system throughout the season, but also inform future responses in the future.”
The time entry program was rolled out in 2022, requiring visitors to advance booking an hourly arrival window for the noon entrance from April 1st to October 31st.
The Arch is one of several national parks, including Acadia, Glacier and Rocky Mountain, and has adopted a timing entry system in recent years, part of a greater effort to protect the park’s landscape and prevent overcrowding. Yosemite National Park in California has been testing multiple versions of timing entries over the past four years, but has reduced the revised 2025 system. This is only allowed for the permits required for the busiest summer stretches (June 15 to August 15) and for arrivals between 6am and 2pm in the 2025 season. Outside those windows, travelers can travel back and forth without booking.
Visit Arches National Park
It is worth noting that the remaining booking season at Arches National Park remains intact. Time entry tickets will continue to be required from August 28th to October 31st, 2025. No permit is required other than these dates. Existing camps, backcountry, fiery furnaces (narrow passages hiking slot canyons and require their own permission), or special use permits also receive timed and input exceptions.
Time entry tickets are available at Recreation.gov and require a processing fee of $2. Park admission fees ranging from $15 to $30 can be purchased online (and with processing fees), and can be paid upon arrival at the park (a valid American beautiful pass or free or discount pass requires no need to pay admission fees.
The time entry program will typically run from April 1st to October 31st, and it is unclear whether the requirements will be exempt from July and August 2026.
Arches National Park is the most otherworldly in Utah. Spanning more than 76,000 acres in eastern Utah, just north of Moab on the Colorado Plateau, it is known to be home to the most concentrated natural stone arches on the planet. There are over 2,000 documents across the protected land, from small specimens glowing gold and crimson at sunrise and sunset to 306 feet long landscape arches.
The park’s winding, scenic drives connect a lineup of biggest hit formations, including gravity-sensitive delicate arches (on Utah license plates), steep twin spans with double arches, and towering rock pillars known as tree gossip. Despite the rough terrain, many of the park’s most incredible sites are surprisingly accessible. Short walks lead to a bigger perspective (but like its powerful five brothers, the arch is packed with longer, more technical hikes, including the Devil’s Garden Trail, a rugged eight-mile loop that passes through multiple arches and a secluded perspective).
Apart from one camping spot, there are no accommodations in the park itself, but hidden deep inside the park, the Devil’s Garden Campground is full of funky motels and luxury hotels in nearby Moab. For high glamping in desert grumps, Ulum, a luxury spinoff from the Under Canvas brand, offers safari-style tents with king beds, private bathrooms, private decks and rain showers set on 200 acres of private property adjacent to Parkland (chosen as one of the best new hotels of 2024). There, guests can relax in morning yoga, refuel at on-site restaurants serving southwest-inspired dishes, take on naturalist hikes, or take part in stargaze sessions. Moab is also designated as an international dark sky community, so viewing of the heavens at night is appealing in itself.
