Contact Information
P.O. Box 907
Moab, UT 84532
435-719-2299
In the southwestern United States there is a world of stone and sky, where between the eye and the horizon lies a colorful panorama of buttes, canyons, and plateaus. Life can be challenging in this desert environment, yet many animals have adapted to the extremes of temperature and topography. Rare perennial streams and seeps support explosions of vegetation and echo with the songs of water-loving wildlife.In Arches National Park, the forces of nature have - over an immense span of time - created a wondrous landscape. Slickrock caps of Navajo sandstone cover layers of sediment from ancient oceans, shores, and deserts. Folds and warps in the layers indicate movement of long-buried salt deposits in an incomprehensibly slow geological drama that seems to have culminated - fortunately for us - in the present day. Arches' incredible towers inspire rock climbers to scale heavenward. Hiking trails lead to enormous rocks balanced on thin spires, standing rock fins and cliff walls hundreds of feet high, and graceful sandstone spans arcing against the sky - a photographer's paradise. The scenic park road makes it easy to visit these wonders by bike and by car. Arches possesses a beauty both grand and strange. In his book Desert Solitaire, the well-known nature writer and environmentalist Edward Abbey found the unique charm of Arches to be epitomized by its most famous feature, Delicate Arch: If Delicate Arch has any significance it lies, I will venture, in the power of the odd and unexpected to startle the senses and surprise the mind out of their ruts of habit, to compel us into a reawakened awareness of the wonderful - that which is full of wonder. The sublime beauty of this land speaks to all its visitors.
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