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


Comments

  1. M.M. AndersonAugust 22, 2020 at 10:19 PM

    Very interesting. I think we may have gone there when I was a child but I don't remember it well. That would be a great place to visit with a camera.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mary BedyAugust 22, 2020 at 11:31 PM

      It was, Linda. It was SO impressive and some of the stone structures are massive.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Am An Artist

Image
Buttons and Stripes                                I am an artist Growing up, I wanted to be an artist. I think growing up a LOT of people want to be artists. Then reality sinks in and most of us go another route to be able to buy our groceries. In my case, I had a 42 year career managing a translation company, after having obtained a degree in Spanish with a minor in French. That was my vocation. A Feather on the Beach 091523 Along the way, I did take time to paint in oil, and I took some adult education classes like painting, life drawing, and art history at the local community college. That kind of slowed way down when the chosen vocation demanded more and more of my time while also raising a family. That said, I am an artist. I have always been an artist. I never made a living at it, and until about 15 years ago, I never made any money at it either, but I am an artist.                              I, and many of my fellow artists have been frowned upon, treated poorly and even beli
Read more

ESCAPE

Image
In this strange time we are experiencing right now, where it’s really not a good idea to engage with a lot of strangers outside your family, there are not that many places you can go to relax. Restaurants, libraries, bookstores and other locations that are frequented by a lot of people are generally not a good idea for a while longer as of this writing on July 1, 2020. But there are a few places one can go and at least have a change of scenery from the walls of your home, where most of us have spent the bulk of the last few months. For me, this is either down at the boardwalk along the Saint Clair river, where it’s easy to practice social distancing, or it’s the local hiking trail where you might encounter two or three people out for a walk or the occasional cyclist. I always take my camera with me even if I’m just mostly going to walk or relax on one of the benches along the trail. It’s a small hiking trail, but it’s well maintained and there are several trees along the path that I
Read more

The Industrial Look

Image
I like the industrial look. I like the shapes and forms of metallic objects created for industrial purposes even though they were not created to be “art” but were usually only created to be functional.   If you look up at massive electrical towers, there are some interesting shapes to be had. The outline of factory stacks can be interesting, old and sometimes decorative sewer grates are works of art unto themselves. As much as I love the local hiking trail, which I have visited literally hundreds of times in all weather conditions and seasons, and as beautiful as nature images are, there is also a place for the man-made, symmetrical, purposeful item when viewed for more than just its function.   When you look at a piece of machinery, think about what the inventor was thinking when he came up with that particular piece of equipment. Was he or she actually thinking just about function? Or was there also some thought to form involved in its creation? Is this thing painted a certain color?
Read more