Travelogue
Arches National Park
by Quamrul Haider
We left Grand Junction in Colorado early in the morning of August 9 for the short drive to Arches National Park in Utah. A road trip through Utah is always remarkable for the tremendous diversity of scenic grandeur on display. Thus, to enjoy much of what Utah has to offer, we took a narrow backcountry road twisting and turning through an area of red sandstone, which has been eroded by the mighty Colorado River, resulting in a myriad of spectacular rock formations of various shapes, sizes and colours.
Arches National Park is located in the high desert region of the Colorado Plateau, just five miles north of Moab, a gritty town on the banks of Colorado River in southeast Utah. A Mecca for tourists and thrill seekers, Moabs extensive network of rugged trails attracts hordes of mountain bikers and off-roaders. Surprisingly, the general appearance of the town, our home for the next two nights, belies the beauty of red rock cliffs and desert terrain all around.
Appropriately named for the hundreds of arches punctuated with oddly eroded sandstone forms, Arches National Park is home to the worlds largest concentration of natural stone arches ranging from sliver-thin cracks to spans greater than 300 feet. It also contains an astounding variety of other rock configurations colossal sandstone fins, massive balanced rocks, soaring pinnacles and tall spires.
The birth of this wonder of nature started about 300 million years ago when an inland sea at the site of the park evaporated and re-formed several times, leaving behind salt beds thousands of feet thick. Later, sand and boulders carried down by streams from the uplands buried the salt beds beneath thick layers of stone. Because salt layer is less dense than the overlying blanket of rocks, the beds rose up through the rocks, giving rise to domes and ridges, with valleys in between. The sandstone domes later collapsed about 150 million years ago and weathered into a maze of vertical rock slabs whose walls eventually wore through, creating the arches and other magnificent rock sculptures that we see today.
Most of the attractions in the park are easily visible from the roadside overlooks along the 23mile long scenic drive. Our first stop was The Courthouse Towers containing monolithic spires and ridges of red rock. The behemoth monoliths sport names like The Three Gossips, The Organ, Tower Of Babel and The Sheep.
Resembling three heads gossiping with each other, Three Gossips is a mid-sized sandstone tower sitting atop a roundish pedestal. The Organ is an impressive rock formation, almost a carbon copy of an old, unused organ pipe gathering dust in the cellar. The Tower of Babel, a narrow free standing wall, is one of the most imposing and distinctive sandstone structures in the park.
After the Courthouse Towers, the road crossed an open, undulating landscape of petrified sand dunes and eroded pinnacles for five miles, before a turn-off led to the Windows Section. The view of the dunes with La Sal Mountains in the background was awesome.
The Windows is full of arches and spires bearing self-explanatory names. The main attraction is an incredible rock formation called Double Arch. It consists of two arches that share the same stone as a foundation for their outer legs. The Arch was used as a backdrop for portions of the 1988 movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
A few miles from the Windows was the Balanced Rock, a big gravity-defying boulder sitting precariously on top of a narrow column of rock. It is an example of erosion caused by the process of weathering. We couldnt help wondering when it would topple.
Next, we headed towards the Sand Dune Arch. Named for a large pile of soft, pinkish-red wind-blown sand at its base, the arch is located in a sandy slot canyon between two fins. The arch can be reached via a short easy-to-walk sandy path through desert sage and blackbrush. Just before the arch, the path becomes a narrow slot that opens into a pleasantly shaded clearing.
We kept the best for the last _the most beautiful free-standing arch _the Delicate Arch. Perched perilously on the edge of a canyon, this is the most famous and most photographed arch in the park. The beauty and majesty of the arch is enhanced by its dazzling hues.
Arches National Park is a world full of wonders _ a landscape of contrasting colours, landforms and textures. Hard to believe though that one day the very forces of nature that carved these unique structures will end their time on Earth. But to us, the park is a red-rock wonderland that is indestructible and frozen in time. It gave us an opportunity to contemplate on our own short mortality in comparison to the incomprehensible eons it took to form these fragile structures.
The writer is Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.
