Thumbnail Guide To Arches National Park

Delicate Arch, Arches NP, UT
Copyright © 1997, Don Baccus (donb@rational.com)

All images copyright © 1997, Don Baccus

About Arches National Park

The park, as the name implies, is full of natural sandstone arches. In fact, with 1,500 of them, it contains the world's largest concentration of natural arches. The twenty-one mile paved road to the campground leads to or near many of them, as well as other sandstone bluffs, spires, fins, and the like. There are also 4-wd unpaved roads open to visitors and plenty of opportunity for back-country travel.

The Visitor Center and campground are open year-round, however ranger-led tourist activities are seasonal, so if these appeal to you, check with the Park for availability.

The entrance fee was recently doubled to $10/car, but is still good for seven days.

When To Go

I visited in late September, and the place was fairly crowded, but not overwhelmingly so. The small campground in the Park filled early every morning, all but the most expensive rooms in Moab were booked, and BLM campgrounds along the Colorado nearly full.

But, then it began raining. After thunderstorm upon thunderstorm, washes became filled with sudden streams, the Colorado ran red with mud, and tourists moved out of the area as though frightened of the possibility of seeing a rainbow in the desert.

That was fine with me, and I had a great time photographing clouds, ephemeral creeks and waterfalls, puddles, and of course rainbows. A thunderstorm in the distance would be followed shortly by the appearance of flowing water, and some of the short-lived waterfalls tumbling over the sheer cliffs looked like they'd been transported from the Columbia Gorge, near my Portland, Oregon home. Fifteen minutes after a squall ended, the flow would first be reduced to a trickle, then to the dripping of a leaky faucet, finally giving way to silence.

I intend to plan my next visit for winter, when crowds will be fewer, snow is a possibility, and high temperatures non-existent.

You'd think that a Park containing features with names like "Fiery Furnace" would be deserted in summer, but this in fact is when most tourists visit.

In The Park

Due to steadily increasing visitation, you are asked to park only in designated areas along the main road, and to stay on trails or solid rock in order to protect cryptogamic soil. Despite these sensible restrictions to protect Park resources, it's an easy place to photograph. When I tired of the parking restrictions, I explored nearby BLM lands and Canyonlands National Park, which receive much less use. I was, of course, still watchful of where I placed my feet, as cryptogamic soil is very sensitive to disturbance.

Before dashing off to hike and photograph, though, I strongly recommend you spend some time in the Visitor's Park to learn a bit about the local geology. There are several different layers of sandstone which form the Colorado Plateau, and the road to Moab lies in the bottom of a huge fault. The different layers of sandstone vary in color and erode and fracture differently, and this fault and the resulting displacement of the sandstone layers is in part responsible for the vastly different appearance of Arches National Park and nearby Canyonlands National Park. The different layers of sandstone are quite easy to recognize.

I didn't follow the above advice, and got mightily confused by the fact that driving west towards Canyonland took me through very different sandstones than those in Arches. I hadn't figured out that valley through which the highway to Moab passes was really a fault. Once I stopped and read an interpretive sign describing the fault and showing the displacement of the various layers of sandstone, it all became blindingly obvious.

Delicate Arch