One of the key destinations in eastern Utah I had selected for photography purposes was Arches National Park and I wasn’t disappointed. It is a truly breathtaking place with the highest concentration of natural sandstone arches and bridges in the world (over two thousand with more still being discovered). The park is very busy with visitors because you can drive on good roads through the park and then go on various hikes to see the arches. Also there are other interesting balanced rocks and fin formations such as those shown here.
Below is the most famous arch in the park (perhaps in the world if you believe the brochure) called Delicate Arch. It is pictured on all Utah licence plates as the state emblem. I took this picture with my zoom lens from across the gorge. You can see tiny people on the horizon to the left of the arch - they took the 3 mile hike with no shade to get up there but it was just too hot for us to attempt that today.
The photos below show various other arches we saw from the road or hiked to.
The over 2,000 arches and bridges (a bridge being an arch over water) range in size from a three foot opening to this big sucker below. It is called Landscape Arch and measures 306 feet base to base. In 1991 a rock slab 60 feet long, 11 feet wide and 4 feet thick fell from the underside of the arch, leaving behind an even thinner ribbon of rock (only 6 feet thick at the narrowest part). It is expected Landscape Arch will fall down completely in the forseeable future, a result of water, ice and extreme temperatures.
By lunchtime we were exhausted from the heat despite having drunk water all morning while hiking. We drove the truck out of the park to the nearby resort town of Moab on the Colorado River and were so impressed we decided to move the RV there after our week in Green River.
The next day we rested up from our exertions and I spent about four hours working on the drawing for my next painting, a lizard beside a cactus in bloom - my first southwest painting subject.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:39 pm Arches, arches everywhere! If you’re going into Oregon and have time, go to Crater Lake. I still remember the picture on the wall at Sandi’s parents home. Thanks for doing the blog. It’s fun travelling with you:)