I made it to the campground in Arches National Park and set up camp. I paid for two days but will, probably, extend my stay to four. Paying the entrance fee was a little more complicated than usual. Since there are several national parks in the area there is a package deal for admission to four of them for $25. The price is a wash but it is more convenient and the pass is good for a year. As a matter of fact, in my case it is god for 13 months since I purchased it on June 1 2000, it will be good till the last day of June 2001. I took a short walk to "broken" and "Sand Dune" arch. There is even an arch a few hundred yards from the campsite called "Skyline" arch. The weather is hot but very dry.

(5:15PM)

Over did it (as usual) on the first day. Decided to try the nearest site which is within walking distance called " the Devils Garden" trail. This leads to "Landscape", "Partition", "Navajo", "Double O"and "Dark Angel" arches. This was a nominal two miles one way but I never did finish. The heat sun climb and thin air were all brutal. I made it almost to "Double O" but the trail started a steep decent that I could not face climbing back up. Lost my lens cap too!

The arches can be quite spectacular. "Landscape" arch is over three hundred feet wide and over eighty feet high in the center. The remaining rock seems quite thin, almost delicate, and will someday, no doubt, fall. In fact in 1991 a slab fell from the middle of the arch and thinned it considerably. The arch near the campground ("Skyline") was DOUBLED in size in 1940 when a huge slab fell.

The geology behind all this is also kind of interesting. The rocks here are a type of soft sandstone that erodes easily and can be split along straight planes. Underlying this is a very thick layer of salt from an evaporated sea. At some point the area was elevated by ~2500 feet by poorly understood geologic forces. The layer of salt could plastically deform, like damp clay, but the layer of sandstone was bent upwards and fractured into a series of vertical slabs much longer than they are wide, something like playing cards on edge. The cracks, of course, were prime sites for erosion when this layer of sandstone was eventually exposed. As the cracks widened, the vertical slabs thinned with some spots, inevitably, thinning quicker than others. At some point the quickest thinning point in a slab will make it's way completely through the vertical slab, and an arch is formed and then enlarged. The park service, counting only arches over three feet wide, claims there are over 2,000 arches in the park. This is the largest concentration of natural arches in the world and a truly remarkable site.

By evening I was too tired to face cooking dinner so I drove into Moab and stopped at a "Wendy's" for a Taco Salad and an extra large drink. It tasted Fabulous!! Drove back to the campground in time for the evening "Program / Lecture" by one of the Park service staff. The lecture was only so - so. Not surprisingly, they keep the material very general and a bit on the elementary side. Before the lecture I talked a bit with the ranger presenting it and she said she would like to travel more but so far had "only" been to Australia, New Zealand, Alaska and Scotland. Not bad for a twenty something! One wonders what she WOULD consider traveling; Double digits maybe?