Map of Arches National Park’s road system and spots tourists can access – courtesy of USGS

Arches National Park is located in eastern Utah. Human history is present, but the true draw of this park are its titular rock formations (which have to be seen to be believed).

Table of Contents:

1. Table of Contents:
2. Rock and Roll … Nah, Just Rocks
3. A Place of Many Peoples
4. Wildlife Below … or Above Like the Arches … Oh, and Plants
5. Delicate Arch [Fragile]
6. North Window, South Window, Turret Arch, Double Arch, Seuss Quote, Seuss Quote, This Is, Getting, Really, Annoying, We Will, Stop Now
7. Ironically-titled (Rock) Garden of Paradise
8. Speaking of Filling Fast …
9. National Park? More Like National Arch!
10. So Concludes the Plot Arch

Rock and Roll … Nah, Just Rocks

Arches National Park belongs to the Paradox Formation. 300 million years ago, the Western Interior Seaway dominated the eastern American Southwest. The salt bed that came with this sea was covered with wind and flood residue as the Seaway grew and shrunk over millions of years. Large chunks of this material solidified into sandstone. The salt bed below what is today Arches flowed under the weight of the sandstones. Some sections of the overlying sandstone were shifted upwards into domes while others dropped into surrounding cavities. The latter resulted in vertical cracks which later developed into the arches as they’re known today. Water flows and ice expansion seeped through the cracks and eroded the rocks, resulting in some pieces falling away and others staying behind (some just barely).

View of the Paradox Formation and adjacent formations – courtesy of Utah Geological Survey

A Place of Many Peoples

The earliest known humans to inhabit Arches resided there 3,000 to 8,000 years ago (although it’s possible people were there for millennia longer than that). Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) and Fremont peoples lived in the area from 200 A.D. to 1300 A.D. The Ancestral Puebloans in particular left rock art in caves, plus dwelling sites and artifacts. Later, the Ute tribe, significant numbers of whom were hunter-gatherers, settled in Arches. The Ute were one of the tribes which drove out white settlers as late as the 1850s. The Navajo (Dine) passed through the area, but no evidence exists to suggest they lived in what is today the park itself.

The Ute were able to protect their lands (including those of Arches) from white settlers until the 1850s – courtesy of Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Wildlife Below … or Above Like the Arches … Oh, and Plants

Arches – parallel to other places in its region – has a great deal more animals than its water-sapped environment would suggest. Foxes, owls, songbirds, rock squirrels, lizards, and so many more are the denizens here; they’ve worked around the restrictions imposed by a land with minimal rain and relatively few plant/meat sources.

Gray fox – courtesy of DesertUSA

Great Horned Owl – courtesy of Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Songbird – courtesy of NASA

Rock squirrel – courtesy of DesertUSA

Desert spiny lizard – courtesy of The American Southwest

Vegetation in Arches is diverse. Expect to find yuccas, mosses, maidenhair fern, purple sage, greasewood, etc.

Yucca, not yuck – courtesy of Ty Ty Nursery

Moss in Colorado – courtesy of The American Southwest

Maidenhair fern – courtesy of Calloway’s Nursery

Purple sage – courtesy of Red Hills Desert Garden

Greasewood, but there’s neither a movie with it nor any assortments of fast food – courtesy of NMSU: Selected Plants of Navajo Rangelands

Delicate Arch [Fragile]

This landmark is a landmark in a landmark. It wasn’t given its current name until a January 1934 article about the Arches National Monument Scientific Expedition was published. The light opening beneath the arch is 46 feet high and 32 feet wide, making it the largest free-standing arch in Arches. This arch won’t last forever, so we advise you get to it if you can.

Delicate arch can be seen up close or from afar, though either way it’ll be packed – courtesy of Our Escape Clause

North Window, South Window, Turret Arch, Double Arch, Seuss Quote, Seuss Quote, This Is, Getting, Really, Annoying, We Will, Stop Now

The Windows Section is a portion of Arches which provides some of the park’s most stunning sights. North Window, South Window, Turret Arch, and Double Arch are among the masterpieces of wind-blown sand erosion.

North Window – courtesy of Behance

South Window – courtesy of Desert Solitude

Turret Arch – courtesy of Expedia

Double Arch; be on the lookout for crows and ravens nesting and resting within and on top of this rock – courtesy of Intermountain Healthcare

Ironically-titled (Rock) Garden of Paradise

The title of Devil’s Garden alone suggests guests are in for a terrifying time, but not so. Arches, spires, and “fins” (made when rainwater erodes parallel fractures caused by the uplift of salt deposits below the surface) are here. The latter erode and create things such as Landscape Arch.

Landscape Arch (no landscape company necessary to trim these bushes) – courtesy of Your Hike Guide

Mushroom-esque rocks in the Garden; these can be found in other parts of the American Southwest, the largest cluster being the “Goblins” nearby – courtesy of World Atlas

Entrance to one of the trails at Devil’s Garden – courtesy of Live and Let Hike

Some arches in the American Southwest won’t be a feast for the eyes for a whole lot longer, so best see as many as you can if you can (but please, don’t do the can-can across or around these, for your own safety) – courtesy of Earth Trekkers

These photos make the Garden seem serene and barely-visited, but our trip there (even with an early morning head start) revealed the place fills fast – courtesy of Live and Let Hike

Speaking of Filling Fast …

It’s so regularly full, it’s caused problems. Air, noise, and water pollution; land disturbance and invasive species; and population centers’ night lights filling up the sky (“light pollution”) have all affected Arches. Consequences include invasive species potentially overtaking native species’ niches and crumbling of the arches (already occurring) happening abnormally fast. These landforms will only be here for a limited time (comparatively speaking), so best head to Arches while you can.

National Park? More Like National Arch!

On April 12, 1929, President Herbert Hoover signed Presidential Proclamation No. 1875 to create Arches National Monument. On November 25, 1938, Arches was expanded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt via Presidential Proclamation No. 2312. The visitor center was opened in 1959, while on July 22, 1960 President Dwight D. Eisenhower adjusted Arches’ boundaries via Presidential Proclamation No. 3360.

November 12, 1971 saw President Richard M. Nixon sign Public Law 92-155, which made Arches a National Park. October 30, 1998 saw President William J. Clinton sign Public Law 105-329 to enlarge Arches National Park.

By November 20, 2010, Arches had an annual visitation of 1 million visitors.

So Concludes the Plot Arch

You don’t need starch to enjoy the arch. That is all.

Courtesy of Conde Nast Traveler

Sources:

1. “Park History: Arches National Park”. National Parks Traveler. https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/parks/arches-national-park/park-history-arches-national-park
2. Webb, Roy. “Arches National Park”. Utah History Encylopedia. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/a/Arches_National_Park.shtml#:~:text=Utes%20lived%20and%20hunted%20throughout,lived%20within%20the%20park%20area.
3. “Animals”. National Park Service. 29 July 2021 (Updated). https://www.nps.gov/arch/learn/nature/animals.htm#:~:text=Crepuscular%20animals%20include%20mule%20deer,snakes%2C%20hawks%2C%20and%20eagles.
4. “Plants”. National Park Service. 29 July 2021 (Updated). https://www.nps.gov/arch/learn/nature/plants.htm
5. “Delicate Arch”. National Park Service. 10 July 2021 (Updated). https://www.nps.gov/arch/planyourvisit/delicate-arch.htm
6. “The Windows Section”. National Park Service. 24 July 2021 (Updated). https://www.nps.gov/arch/planyourvisit/the-windows.htm
7. “Devil’s Garden”. National Park Service. 23 July 2021 (Updated). https://www.nps.gov/arch/planyourvisit/devils-garden.htm
8. “Environmental Factors”. National Park Service. 11 March 2022. https://www.nps.gov/arch/learn/nature/environmentalfactors.htm#:~:text=More%20recently%2C%20human%2Dcaused%20factors,electric%20lights%20in%20nearby%20communities.
9. “Arches National Park Historic Timeline”. National Park Service. 15 February 2019. https://www.nps.gov/articles/arch-timeline.htm

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