We also visited the Arches National Park while in the Moab area. This is a very famous national park, and the Delicate Arch is featured on the Utah license plates. This area is unique in that there are dozens of arch formations within a fairly small park – the road from the visitors center to the end is 18 miles.

Rock arches are formed when sandstone is acted upon by water over millions of years. First, water trickles into cracks in the rock and when the water freezes it spreads, causing vertical fissures in the rock. Over time these fissures become larger and larger and then erosion takes over and starts eroding the rockface. Erosion can create many types of rock formations: spires, towers, and arches.

Several of the arches are viewable right from the road going through the park, and some are only viewable by hiking to them. We did several hikes to see arches while here.

We learned that several of the arches have had rocks fall out of the arch recently. The Skyline Arch had a huge rock fall in 1940 instantly doubling the size of the arch. The huge Landscape Arch had parts of the arch fall in 1991 while people were underneath! They heard cracking and got away from the arch so no one was hurt. Other arches have had rockfalls and we saw lots of cracks and fissures in several arches that may lead to falling rock at some point. Most of the arches have trails that lead right up under and through the arch. The exception was the Landscape Arch which is unstable enough that they closed off the base of the arch.

There are lots of really interesting rock formations in the Arches Natl Park as well as arches, several are named. It’s definitely a National Park that should be on everyone’s bucket list!

Here are pictures of some of the rock formations and arches we saw here at Arches National Park: