Arches National Park

This is our anniversary week - 43 years ago I was getting ready to walk down the aisle to marry my high school sweetheart.  We had both just finished college and Butch was getting ready to start medical school.  Wow... what can I say ...  time flies!!

To celebrate this year, we planned a trip from Montana to the Grand Canyon, with as many stops along the way as we had time to do in the one week we had scheduled.  We left Big Sky right after church and drove south through Idaho, Salt Lake City, and then headed back east to Price, Utah. 

The road to this little town is a beautiful drive.  The further east we went, the more mountain cliffs we saw!  Just outside of Price, we drove through a high mountain pass and could see a coal vein running through the rock.  Sure enough, at the end of the pass was the coal-fired energy plant, one of three in this area and a major employer in the region.  We had driven about 450 miles, and had a nice hotel room waiting for us in Price, so we had a good meal, a good night's rest, and started out the next morning for our 1st National Park destination - Arches National Park - just outside of Moab, Utah.

Years ago, I flew from Dallas to Salt Lake City late in the day, and could not take my eyes off the brilliant red rocks over which we were flying.  It was really an amazing experience - eerily spiritual.  Since that time, I had always wanted to see this part of the country from the ground. 

Arches National Park is the land of red rocks, but that's only part of the story.  This area is a virtual pancake stack of rock, miles thick, each layer representing a different environment that existed here in the past.  A layer of limestone might represent the presence of an inland sea; a section of sandstone indicates a period of wind-blown dunes from a drier time, and a layer of shale tells of a swampy river floodplain ruled by dinosaurs and huge trees.  Indeed, there were many times during this day that I could vividly imagine myself in the valley of dinosaurs roaming through this land.

I knew of the vast inland sea that once covered this third of the country.  What I didn't know was that over the billions of years that this planet has evolved, there have been some 30 seas that have risen and fallen in this area.  Each time, another layer of rock has been deposited, and every year since, the wind has eroded the sandstone layers to form these beautiful arches.  It's a living geology museum through which we wandered for the entire day.

The red rocks, as one might suspect, are deposits of iron that have oxidized or "rusted", and it is the predominant color of the arches in the park.  The Delicate Arch in this picture is the must stunning example of this process of oxidation and erosion.

But, this view of the Fiery Furnace, in another section of the park, shows many other colors.   The white to tan threads in the rock indicate  an accumulation of organic acids dissolving the iron and bleaching the rock.  The turquoise-colored rocks were created when volcanic ash settled into a large alkaline lake - an environment with very little oxygen.  This tapestry of colors is frankly stunning!

In addition to the arches, two other formation types are created by the process of wind erosion - spires and fins.  At Park Avenue, aptly named for the canyon of skyscrapers one experiences when standing on Park Avenue in Manhattan, a series of fins stand like giants, reaching 1,000 feet into the sky.  Wind and water in the form of ice have worn away once thick rocks into these formations.  With time and the continuing process of erosion, these fins will be the arches of the future/
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In another section, spires and balanced rocks present more evidence of the effect of time and natural forces on this landscape.  This balanced rock, precariously perched on a thin spire, was at the beginning of one of our favorite hikes.  From the base of this rock, we hiked up to the North Window arch, then around to the South Window arch and on around to the back side of both arches.  Most of the trails are paved, but this hike around the back side of these arches was just a foot trail marked by rock cairns and we only met a handful of other hikers on the trail.  The quiet beauty of this landscape was a wonderful treat.

Driving out of the park, we caught a nice view of the Moab Fault, a 2,500 foot displacement in the earth through which the main road from Price to Moab now runs.  Just a few miles to the east is the rather touristy town of Moab, but we managed to find an excellent new restaurant with a beautiful patio and waterfall, and wonderful menu.

On to the Grand Canyon tomorrow!