After arriving in Moab and checking into our hotel around 4pm, we decided there was still enough daylight to check out some of Arches National Park. This park contains the highest concentration of natural stone openings in the world.

A ranger at the Visitor Center was recommending the 1.5 mile hike to Delicate Arch for sunset, but we decided to spare my knee and settled on viewing from the Delicate Arch Viewpoint. Even though it was still a little over an hour before sunset, you can see the large numbers of people in this image to the left of the arch. Delicate Arch must be the most photographed arch in the park, and a large percentage of those photos are probably taken during the sunrise and sunset hours when the rock's red hues are the most prominent.

Since we chose not to do the sunset hike, we had time to drive to several viewpoints and short trails near the park's main road. Individually, these two arches are known as North and South Windows. The main trail in the area does not provide good simultaneous viewing of both arches, however the primitive trail that begins behind South Window provides a nice view of both arches, where they are sometimes referred to as The Spectacles.

Water and ice are the major forces that carve the arches into the landscape. Water runs into the rock's cracks and behind flakes of rock. As the water freezes, it expands and pries off grains and chunks of sandstone, Slowly, pieces of rocks fall out and the arch grows, eventually leading to it's own collapse. Wind plays a smaller role in the process, although it does assist in cleaning out the debris loosened by the water and ice, as well as "sanding" the exposed surfaces.

This is Turret Arch, and it is located in the same area as North and South Windows. I'm 5' 8" (173 cm.) tall, so you should be able to estimate the height of the arch based on that information. To be considered an arch, a span must have a minimum opening of 3 feet in any single direction. Nearly 2,000 arches have been documented in the park, but most visitors see only about 100 of the larger, more dramatic openings. Here is a partial list of some of Utah's arches (some are not located in Arches National Park) along with links to descriptions of many of the arches.

For someone else's view of some of these arches, William Chan's web pages has a nice photograph of Turret Arch through North Window as well as a beautiful picture of Delicate Arch at sunset.

Spires and balanced rocks that sit on sandstone foundations that don't seem adequate for support, share the landscape with the arches found in the park. The many vertical cliffs in the area are extremely susceptible to the constant weathering. These cliffs become mesas, mesas are reduced in size to buttes, and buttes are further eroded into spires and pinnacles.

Fiery Furnace is a series of mazelike narrow sandstone canyons. The hikes through this trail-less area are guided by a park ranger and a reservation is usually required. So for this trip we settled on the view from Fiery Furnace Viewpoint. The many fins and spires found in the area give the illusion of flames, which seem to glow in the red light of sunset. Over 50 arches, at least one natural bridge and many other spectacular formations are hidden throughout this area. We will definitely be re-visiting this area in a future trip back to the park. Here is another account of a visitor's trip to Fiery Furnace.

This picture was not taken the same afternoon as the others on this page. After a good night's sleep in Moab, we planned a hike through Devil's Garden for the following day. This arch is one we visited during that very fascinating and spectacular hike. Continue on to the next page which includes more details about the Devil's Garden hike, and see if you can match this arch with one of the images shown there.