Arches National Park: Part II
Garden of Eden, the Windows, and Delicate Arch
Arches National park has the "densest concentrations of natural stone arches in the world". With other 2,000 natural rock arches, there is a lot to see in this park.
How the arches are formed:
Quick and Dirty : Stages of arch formation
Rainwater dissolves sandstone, widening cracks to form fins.
An alcove eroded in the base of a fin might grow to form an arch before finally collapsing.
Types of Arches:
Cliff Wall Arch
Free Standing Arch
Pothole Arch
Natural Bridge
Fun Fact:
Spans must have a light opening of at least three feet in one direction
to count as an official arch www.nps.org
To wrap up our trip at Arches, we left the Fiery Furnace and headed towards Delicate Arch, stopping for a few photo ops on the way.
The Garden of Eden.
This really cool area housed these rock structures.
There were also some people climbing in this section of the park.
Leaving the Windows section of Arches Parade of Elephants Arches
Finally we got to the Wolfe Ranch/ Delicate Arch section. You can hike out to the Arch and stand right under if for a picture. However, we had the dog so opted for the viewing area. The lower viewing area is a short walk, and the upper viewing area is about a half mile hike uphill.
At first I was like okay, it's just going to be another arch,
but it was a pretty epic view of a free standing natural arch.
Next time we head to Arches National Park, we will be sure to hike the northern section of the park, get a permit to hike the fiery furnace, and make the 3+ mile round trip hike to Delicate Arch.
Check back in for my last post in the Moab series, at Negro Bill's Canyon.
Love all your pictures from this trip. So pretty. Thanks for sharing.
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