Arches National Park

Arches National Park in Utah has a catalog of over 2,000 arches ranging in size from three feet wide to Landscape Arch, which measures 306 feet wide at the base. The park lies on top of a salt bed that came from ocean cover that came and went 300 million years ago, the top layer of which solidified and the weight of the top layer forced the unstable salt layer below to buckle, and arches, trenches, fins and other structures were formed when layers under pressure fell into the shifting base.

Arches National Park is part of the Colorado Plateau and is considered high desert. It lies at about 5,500 feet on average above sea level. It’s hot and dry in the summer and there are signs all over the park warning people to watch out for altitude sickness. I visited the park several years ago with my husband and daughter, and we stopped along the road at the very popular and impressive spot called Double Arch with two massive stone arches that you can sit under or walk back through to explore. If you look at my photo of double arch shown at the top here, and you examine the bottom of the photo, you will see several people at the base of these massive structures which will give you a sense of scale.

As we walked from our parking spot on the side of the road, which wasn’t very far from the structure itself, my daughter was commenting on how hot is was. My response was “Yeah, but it’s a dry heat,” and at that point I was fine.

We finally got over to the arches and there was a slight climb and an incline of about 20 feet up to the base of the structure. By the time I sat down on the base of the front arch, I was gasping for breath and trying not to either pass out or throw up. My husband kept asking me if I was OK and I couldn’t muster enough breath to answer him. Keep in mind, I live at 500 feet elevation in Michigan and we were at over 5,000 feet at the time.

Fortunately, I stabilized after about ten minutes and didn’t require rescue of any kind, but when we finally got up to walk back to the car, I took my time and my daughter went quickly to get the rental car, turn the air conditioning to high, and pull closer to where we were. The rest of the day, I only photographed from the overlook parking lots, or not too far from them, and I walked slowly when I strayed from the car.

That experience aside, I would love to go back. I love geology and this park is a marvel of impressive structures. If you have never been there, I highly recommend it. Take water and watch out for altitude sickness if you are not used to higher elevations.

For more of my images from Arches National Park, please visit my gallery here:

https://mary-bedy.pixels.com/collections/arches+national+park