Arches National Park

This is Druid Arch. One of the 1500 Arches located in Arches National Park. Click on the image to view the full size picture.

Arches is located just 5 miles north of Moab Utah, on Hwy 191. It is incredibly beautiful. There are more than Arches here, there are wierd rock formations, and vistas of the La Sal Mountains that are beyond compare.

Delicate Arch. Click to see full picture. This ones AWESOME!

Here is some general info: Arches National Park is 73,379 acres in size.

ADDRESS:

Arches National Park
P.O. Box 907
Moab, UT 84532

TELEPHONE:

(80l) 259-8l6l (voice)
(80l) 259-5279 (TTY)

OPERATING HOURS, SEASONS: Visitor Center open 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, until 6:00 p.m., April through October; closed December 25.

The road through Arches is a 48 mile round trip paved road.

The Devils Garden Campground, located l8 miles from the park entrance, has 50 tent and trailer sites, plus two walk-in group sites limited to tenting for ten or more persons. Facilities include flush toilets and water until frost. You must pre-register for individual campsites at the Arches Visitor Center between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m., or at the entrance station after 8:00 a.m. Group campsite reservations are available for the two group sites; call(801)259-4351 for information. The Arches campground fills daily mid-March through October, often by early to mid-morning.

For those of you interested in Geology, here is a short explaination on how the arches came into being.....The park lies atop an underground salt bed. Thousands of feet thick in places, the salt bed was deposited some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and evaporated over time. This happened many times. The salt was covered over with the residue from floods and winds and the other oceans that came and went. Over millions of years the debris was compressed into rock. This overlying layer may have been more than a mile thick.

The salt bed underneath was no match for the heavy layer of rock. Under the pressure of the rock, the salt layer shifted, buckled, and liquified, thrusting the layers upwards. Faults deep in the Earth caused movement that produced vertical cracks in the stone. Surface erosion stripped away the younger rock layers while, over time, water seeped into the long, straight cracks. Erosion along the straight cracks shaped the sandstone into slender, upright slabs of rock resembling walls. The slabs, when exposed on the surface are called "fins."

Once the faces of the fins are exposed, erosion begins to act here too. In the winter, water turns to ice putting pressure on the surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Wind and water attack the standing fins of rock and, in some, the cementing material gives way. Chuncks of rocks tumbled down. Many fins collapse, but some are strong enough to remain standing, becoming the famous arches.
Many thanks to RON For the use of the geology info. If you would like to know more, give his site a visit. Thanks Ron!

Many thanks to Eric Vandering for letting me use these great photo's. Please visit him, he has other photo's of The Rocky Mountains and the Cascades, as well as other places, and these photo's are as high a quality as I've ever seen on line. Thanks Again Eric, You're Awesome!!!!!!