Arches National Park

One of our favorite national parks is Arches National Park, just outside Moab, UT.  Arches seems incredible to many, as there are so many arches cut out of the rock, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins and other formations all contained into a relatively small space.  The park lies on top of an underground salt bed that, combined with floods, winds, and oceans that came and went, created the features that make Arches a true national treasure.  Although we’ve been there several times, I never get tired of the stark beauty of Arches.

One of the first features is called Park Avenue, after the skyscrapers found in larger cities, like New York.  The formations are made up of Estrada Sandstone, which began forming over 150 million years ago. Within the past 2 million years erosion has formed these rock walls, called fins.  These are actually the first step in arch formations.

Moving on through the Park, we came to an interesting formation called Three Gossips.  I find it amazing that Nature can created something that reminds us so clearly of human beings!!

This is another interesting rock feature, just down from the Three Gossips.  The rock on the right is called Sheep Rock, for obvious reasons.  The sort of slab on the left is called Courthouse Rock, and some geologists feel that at one point in time, there was a rock bridge (my term) connecting the two rock features with 2 arches cut into the bridge.  These arches, geologists feel, collapsed probably several million years ago.

Along the route through Arches, in addition to the rock formations, there are some pretty interesting dead trees, too.  Here are just a couple that seem to have quite a bit of character!!

Balanced Rock (on the left) is a popular stop along the route.  The Windows Arches (North and South) are a popular stop for folks.  The North Window (shown on the right) is quite huge – the folks standing within the Arch give you a very good perspective of the size! 

In the same vicinity of the Windows Arches are the Double Arch and another (unnamed) pair of arches.  You can see that the arch in the lower image is much thicker than one of the Double Arches (top image).  The thinner the arch span, the shorter the remaining life span, relatively speaking.  Arches do collapse, though.  Back in 2008, sometime between the night of August 4^th and the morning of August 5^th, an arch called Wall Arch collapsed, temporarily blocking a hiking trail.  And, in 1991, Landscape Arch (to see an image of this arch, visit https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&id=E9A4E074FE79A20B9DC5294912879F02450BE65C&thid=OIP.RFBireTQHhFGgoIl5NXoxAHaE5&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia-cdn.tripadvisor.com%2Fmedia%2Fphoto-s%2F01%2Fe4%2Ff8%2Fe6%2Fanother-view-of-landscape.jpg&exph=364&expw=550&q=landscape+arch+arches+national+park&selectedindex=0&ajaxhist=0&vt=0&eim=1,2,6 ) partially collapsed with a couple of people standing under it when it did.  Luckily, no one was hurt, but access to stand under the Arch has been closed to the public from that point on.  We did hike to see that arch once, but not on this trip.

The most iconic of the arches in the Park is Delicate Arch.  In fact, this arch is the one that is pictured on the Utah state license plates.  I’ve never hiked up to it, but my niece did a few years ago, and said the hike is a bit strenuous in places.  However, she’s young and in great shape, so it was no problem for her!  I’m happy just to photograph it from the view area!

Perhaps my favorite stop in Arches is Sand Dune Arch.  This arch is somewhat hidden, and you need to walk into what seems like a bit of a canyon to get to it.  There are a couple of different entries into the area and both are quite beautiful.

I love standing under Sand Dune Arch and photographing it along with the wall behind it.  Of course, given what I just said about Landscape Arch, perhaps I should rethink doing this in the future!!

Enjoy!