After recovering from the hike through Devil's Garden, we decided to start at the North of the Park and go down all the short paths we could before we had to leave to set up camp for the night. I had seen several places where it mentioned that Skyline Arch had doubled in size one cold November night in 1941, so I wanted to see that one especially. Landscape Arch has also been growing recently. It grew some in 1941, and then again in 1991 and 1995. They have pictures people took of the rocks falling out of it in 1991.

While going out to see Broken Arch we met Ranger Lee who told us all about the arches, what makes an arch, how many there are, all that fun stuff. In order for something to be considered an arch in the park it must go all the way through the rock and be at least 3 feet across in any direction. He said so far they've found over 2,200 arches in the park.

A long time ago the area of the park was a salt bed, and when the salt bed collapsed underneath the ground, a valley formed. The rocks on either side of the valley cracked parallel to it, and that's what the fins are. They are slowly falling into the valley, like cosmic dominoes. And erosion in those fins creates the arches. It is the water that is breaking the sandstone apart. The different layers of sandstone erode at different rates, and that's why we get the arches, why they are so concentrated in this part of the world, something I'd been wondering about.

He also told us about the Natural Bridge and Arch Society that keeps track of these things around the world. Outside of the park the definition of an arch is that it goes all the way through the rock, but the minimum dimension is 5 feet instead of 3.

Before camping for the evening we saw the following arches and other things at the park:

Skyline Arch | Broken Arch | Sand Dune Arch | Fiery Furnace Viewpoint | Balancing Rock

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Skyline Arch

Broken Arch

Sand Dune Arch

Fiery Furnace Viewpoint
click for a 180º panoramic shot from here

Balancing Rock
We stopped at Balancing Rock Friday night,
and then again Saturday afternoon just before heading home.

<on to Courthouse Towers>