Utah/Arches National Park

Sunday, Mar 17

We knew that today would be a long hard drive.  We got up early (before the times when generators are allowed to operate in the park) and moved the motorhome to a parking lot, started the generator for coffee and breakfast, then got on the road.

It was a day of extreme diversity on the road, from dry, arid desert, to 8,000 foot snow covered mountain passes, to roads through sheer cliffs, down the longest, steepest descents we've seen, and crosswinds up to 40+ mph with a sandstorm.

Sand storm

Finally, settled in Moab, Utah

All this made for a couple of tired campers when we pulled into a very nice RV Resort in Moab, Utah.

The first thing we did was change into bathing suits and hit the hot tub and swimming pool for an hour of relaxing and soothing sore, aching muscles.

Monday, Mar 18

We could not decide until the last minute whether to go to Arches National Park or Canyonlands National Park.  It's unusual to have two great options of National Parks to visit.  There is no way we could do both in one day, and we chose Arches.

What a treat!

Although not as spectacular as some of the other National Parks we have visited, this is well worth the visit.  The geology of the arches and their spectacular setting make it a very special place.

Arches National Park reminds me of a term "geological years" that I have heard to describe many of the features of the Western US.  I think in terms of "human  years".  When I think of changes to the landscape that I view, in our lifetimes (human years), we may see a rock fall or a piece of an arch fall.  However, the arches, along with  the other spectacular geography that we see today in places like Arches can only be viewed in "geological" years.  They may have been formed over a thousand years, a million years or a billion years.  It's impossible for me to comprehend "geological years".

Mimi balances Balanced Rock in her hand!!!

Balanced Rock! But you have to wonder for how long - another million years or next week.  The rock that is balanced on top is 55 feet high.

Mimi in the arch waving to me

Looking up at the arch from beneath it.  I just know it's going to fall - someday!

These arches are called "The Windows"

The Wolfe Family lived in this isolated cabin in what is now Arches National Park from 1898 to 1910.  It is hard to believe that they could have survived in this harsh, desert environment.

This is the most spectacular arch in the park.  It is 306 feet across, bigger that a football field.  Only a few years ago, a 60 foot rock slab fell out of the arch.  Someday, it will all be gone.

This is a very old tree that is fighting hard to survive.  The green limb behind Mimi is the top of the tree, and the trunk of the tree is in front of her.

The Happy cameraman

We saw this sign "after" we had walked under a bunch of arches and balanced rocks.

o

For Anna and Evan:  Water and ice, extreme temperatures, and underground salt movement are responsible for the sculptured rock scenery of Arches National Park.  On clear, blue-sky days like today, it is difficult to imagine such violent forces - or the 100 million years of erosion - that created this land which has one of the world's greatest densities of natural arches.  Over 2,000 cataloged arches ranging in size from a three-foot opening, the minimum considered an arch, to the longest, Landscape Arch, measuring 306 feet base to base.  

Today new arches are being formed and old ones destroyed.  Erosion and weathering work slowly  but relentlessly, creating dynamic landforms that gradually change through time.  

Change sometimes occurs dramatically.  In 1991 a rock slab 60 feet long, 11 feet wide, and 4 feet thick fell from the underside of Landscape Arch, leaving behind a even thinner ribbon of rock. 

The park lies atop an underground salt bed that is responsible for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths of this landscape.  

Thousands of feet thick in places, this salt bed was deposited across the Colorado Plateau 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated.  Over millions of years, residue from floods, winds, and the oceans that came and went blanketed the salt bed.  The debris was compressed to rock, at one time possibly a mile thick.  

Salt under pressure is unstable, and the salt bed lying below Arches was no match for the weight of this thick cover of rock.  The salt layer shifted, buckled, liquefied, and repositioned itself, thrusting the rock layers upward as domes, and whole sections fell into the cavities.

Faults deep in the Earth made the surface even more unstable.  As the salt's subsurface shifting shaped the Earth, surface erosion stripped off the younger rock layers, leaving what we see today.