Arches National Park, Utah

Arches National Park is famous for its sandstone formations and in particular those that are in the shape of an arch. There are over 2000 catalogued arches in this national park.  In order to be considered an arch – as opposed to a mere hole – the opening must be at least 3 feet wide, and there is infinite variety in the shape and size of the numerous arches of Arches.  On first appearances, the landscape of Arches looks like it has been mixed in a blender and poured out into a large basin, then Salvador Dali came along and went to work, creating this whimsical and highly unusual landscape. 

Balancing Rock

Geologists think that the high concentration of natural arches in Arches is due to a massive salt bed that was laid down by a succession of shallow seas 300 million years ago.  Over time this salt was covered by sand that was compressed into sandstone.  This rock, in places a mile thick, put too much pressure on the salt, which shifted, buckled and liquefied.  This caused faults in the sandstone blocks, which were eroded by wind and rain (which would often freeze and expand, breaking the rock) into upright fins.  Pools of water forming at the base and in the middle of these fins would eat away at the rock, forming caves and eventually arches when the rock above them collapsed.  Some arches, which are called pothole arches, are formed when a pool of water formed on the roof of a fin.  The water would dissolve the rock and make a deeper pool.  When this pothole reaches the top of the next lower sandstone layer, which weathers slower (being made up of less soluble minerals), the pool expands horizontally rather than vertically and eventually eats through the wall of the rock fin, thus transforming the boring fin into a magical arch.  

Delicate Arch with La Sal mountains behind

What We Did

Arches is promoted as the family national park, but being without any ourselves at the time, we did what we do best, hiked.  Most of the major arches can be viewed from the car or from a short walk of less than a mile.  One exception is Delicate Arch, which is also probably the park’s – and the nation’s – most famous arch.  Delicate Arch, also known as cowboy chaps, is blessed with an inspiring backdrop of the La Sal Mountains.  These mountains are perennially snow-capped and contrast beautifully with the salmon-coloured Entrada Sandstone from which most of the arches are carved.  As we busted this walk out the wind was blowing an absolute gale, so we got a good feel for the carving of the arches by the wind, often laced with fine sand particles and water.  Delicate Arch is also unique for its exposed position.  It stands alone on a curved wave of rock, isolated and resplendent apart from the surrounding fins.  

Landscape Arch

Arches was shaping up to be one of our favourite little national parks, until we camped the night at Devil's Garden Campground.  You might say, dear reader, in the cool, clear vision of hindsight, that we had it coming staying in a place with a name like that.  In our defence, a name like this is commonplace in the west of the U.S. A., because at the time that much of this area was being named by western settlers there was a fascination with spiritualism.  You’ve no doubt noted and puzzled at the prevalence of angels, hell, devils, buddas, vishnus, temples etc in the names of places mentioned in the blog.  The campground was picturesque, sites located around multiple sand dunes and fins. The setting was perfect, until a strong wind camp through in the early evening creating a wind storm.  Alex had escaped on a rare trail run at this time and Lish was left cold, tired and alone to cook up the evening chilli and batten down the hatches.  After dark we tried to seek refuge in our tent, but the fine grains of sand easily filtered through the mesh sides of our tent. We thought, often, about abandoning camp and returning to the Lazy Lizard Hostel in Moab, but we were worried that the tent would blow away and all our camping gear in it. It was impossible to pack up the gear whilst the sand was swirling away outside. So we sat, or rather laid, it out all night long, grumbling away, grinding the sand between our teeth and listening to it filtering into our ears.  By morning the wind had died down and everything we owned was covered by a layer of fine red sand.  Weeks later it is still working its way out of our tent, sleeping bags, clothing, ears...

Despite feeling a little miffed the next day we did a short hike to Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park measuring 306 ft between spans.  In 1991 a 60 foot chunk of this arch fell off its underside.  The tourists picnicking underneath were able to get out of the way in time, and one even had the presence of mind to take a picture as the rock was falling. The picnic spot under the Arch was closed down.  

Inspired by this daring arch we became a little arch-crazy, and launched into a whirlwind arch-viewing spree that took in 11 named arches whose names will add no value to this post.  We emerged, happy but exhausted at the gate in the early afternoon with quiet confidence that we’d seen all that the family national park has to offer.