Six views of Delicate Arch. For some reason – I think because we still weren't used to the digital camera paradigm of take-pictures-indiscriminately-cause-you-can-throw-the-bad-ones-away-right-now – we didn't take any pictures of the trail to or from Delicate Arch, but we took a bunch of pictures at the Arch. But I get ahead of myself.

We drove back downriver, turned right at Moab, and into Arches National Park. Flashed the pass, and drove up the wall of sandstone behind the entrance station. It was already pretty hot, even though it was partly overcast. The plan was to be well out of here by nightfall, so we didn't have a lot of time to look around; what to do first? The Windows section: probably crowded, not much hiking. Park Avenue: no arches. Fiery Furnace: well, the name kind of sums that up. The best balance of getting out and hiking, actual archy scenery, and degree of difficulty? Probably the Delicate Arch trail.

So, past Balanced Rock; past the slow parade of RVs turning off towards the Windows section; down into the Salt Valley, then right to the parking lot for the Delicate Arch trail, at the foot of a strikingly copper-green hill – not vegetation, the rock of the hill itself, bright blue-green. I think this is Jurassic-era Morrison Formation siltstone, which would normally lie atop all the exposed rock here, but has slumped down into the collapsed salt dome which forms the Salt Valley. The Morrison is well-known among the geologically inclined as being a very rich fossil-bearing strata. Many of the classic dinosaur finds in the western U.S. came out of Morrison beds in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming... oh, God, I've wandered off into geo-pedant land again. Ok, I'll stop now.

Some scenes, even though they are the most goddamned clichéd things imaginable, just force me to take pictures of them. A million people could have taken the exact same picture before, and most of them better, but I just can't help myself – must ... take... this... picture... of.... the arch.....

(Some random guy in there for scale.)

Now that I think about it, Arches was the first national park I ever visited ... or was it Bryce, or Zion? It was a long time ago, when I was 11, and all part of the same trip, so I don't remember which one we did first. I remember Bryce and Zion as being unpleasantly hot, but Arches as cool, almost uncomfortably cold and overcast. I don't remember what month it was, but it was probably in the late winter or early spring. I remember walking along the last parts of the trail to the Arch, in the face of a numbing wind, wearing only an inadequate light sweatshirt. I didn't know it at the time, but before the trail gets to the arch, it passes another small arch – more of a window, really – that looks over Delicate Arch and the slickrock bowl it presides over.

From the Arch, you can look back towards the west and see most of the trail route, all the way back to the parking lot. Conversely, if you know what to look for, you can see the Arch from much of the trail; but you're looking at it end-on, so it just looks like another sandstone knob.

The slickrock bowl is a pretty distinctive landmark on its own; here's the satellite image of it. It looks a little like a big ear.

The arch, and the slickrock bowl next to it, and basically all the arches in the park are formed from Jurassic-era Entrada sandstone, which lies above the Navajo sandstone, which means that the Entrada is some of the youngest rock in this area. If I may be permitted another moment of intense geo-geekliness, Entrada is my favorite sandstone; that salmony-orange color, the way it erodes into such smooth, ropy curves, the neat little handholds that form in it. It forms fantastical shapes, like the Claron Formation does at Bryce, but it's harder, and forms larger, longer-lasting structures, like the arches and the towers of Park Avenue.

Admittedly, that's still not very hard. Apparently, Entrada is considered poor climbing rock; it's too soft and brittle to assure good hand and footholds if you're trying to hang your whole weight from them. This past May, a rock climber, and his crew, all climbed the arch, late at night, and then the crew filmed the climber doing it again at dawn. There's still controversy (much controversy) over whether the climbs did any damage to the arch – close-up photos of the top reveal what look like rope scars. The climber got himself in a lot of trouble with the authorites, who then discovered, to their chagrin, that there was no actual prohibition to climbing the arch on the books. There is now.^[1]

In the two prior times I'd been to Delicate Arch, I'd always wondered what things would look like from the bottom of that slickrock bowl. I'd never seen anyone go down there, and I don't recall ever having seen any pictures from down there, so down we went. It's a neat little spot, and must be quite impressive in a downpour – all the rain drains down into the bowl, which then creates a short-lived body of water in the bowl, or overflows over the rim of the canyon in a 300-foot cascade.

On the way up, we'd passed several small pools that just looked like brief temporary puddles on solid rock, but at least one of them had tadpoles living in it.

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^[1]The climber was sponsored by Patagonia, who initially set up a press conference touting the climb. After the overwhelmingly negative response news of the climb engendered, Patagonia backpedalled feverishly, saying they knew nothing! nothing! about the climb or the potential legal issues involved.

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Posted by David Fleck at 08 October 2006 12:20 PM