Utah Canoeing Trip – Day 12, Arches National Park

Arches National Park

OK, so this park kicks butt. Like every National Park, it’s incredibly unique but the striking difference compared to North Carolina made it a particular joy for me. I arrived at 5pm which gave me plenty of time to spend in the visitor’s center (35 minutes) and then a quick boogie around the park including a few miles of hiking to the key sights. I wanted to see a bit of Arches while here but I wanted to prioritize my time in Canyonlands National Park since we would be paddling the Green River through it over the next 1.5 weeks. After the paddling part of my trip is done I need to get rolling back to NC to bring this month to a close so it was a quick trip to Arches now or wait until the next time I make it out here. My wife Denise has been very supportive but I said I would be gone for “only” 1 month on this trip. She misses me like crazy and I could use a recharge myself so I’m going to stick to it and be home by June 9th as promised. if it turns into June 10th because I don’t want to do the daily miles to make it happen then fine, but not because I’m out wandering around another park.

Arches NP has the most concentrated collection of arches in the world: over 2,000 documented. The arches formed due to multiple geographical events. First, layers of salt were deposited (thousands of feet thick in places) due to the inflow and evaporation of sea water some 300 million years ago. Debris then covered the salt bed, much of which was various types of sandstone, which erodes fairly easily. This pressure liquified the salt bed below which caused it to migrate to concentrated areas causing uplifts of the stone above. A 2,500 ft fault then shifted the ground further which laid the path for erosion that results in the formations we see today. The movie in the visitor’s center shows this quite well.

Without further adieu, here are some pics:

 

 

That’s what I’ve got from today. That night I parked discreetly somewhere to get some shut eye, late after writing a blog post. I’m off to Canyonlands National Park tomorrow, check back to see it, it’s going to be amazing!