Arches National Park

Michelangelo said that statues are imprisoned in living stone; it was his job as a sculptor, working with hammer and chisel, to free them. Here in the broken desert landscape of Arches National Park, nature is the sculptor. Working at an infinitely slower pace than Michelangelo did, she has freed one of the world's great collections of abstract statuary from the grainy red rock in which it has long been locked.

In this vast outdoor gallery, many pieces are still emerging after tens of millions of years. Others have been worn away to stubs, which are themselves monumental forms. And some exist today at the peak of perfection, awesome in size, grandeur, and delicacy, each as individual as a fingerprint and each in a constant state of change.

The prime exhibits are, of course, the arches. More of them exist here than in any other place on earth–well over 2,000 by recent count–and they range in form and size from rounded windows only a yard or so wide, through walls of stone, to freestanding loops of ribbon-like rock as tall as apartment houses.

Delicate Arch, the park's symbol and star attraction, is a graceful hoop of salmon-colored sandstone about 65 feet high, with an opening nearly 35 feet wide. Cowboys used to call it the Schoolmarm's Bloomers for its distinctive silhouette, but today it is known by its more lyrical name because a spot on one leg has been worn nearly through. One day the arch will topple, but that day is probably long distant.

Landscape Arch, a span so thin it looks like ticker tape tossed from a high window, is 306 feet across, 106 feet high, and in one place perilously narrow. There is no engineering reason why it should stand, but there it is, defying time and gravity. Although Zion National Park's Kolob Arch once was thought to be longer than Landscape Arch, more recent measurements have shown that Landscape is the world's longest natural arch. And it is still the most breathtaking. Like all arches, Landscape is not the same today as it was yesterday, nor will it be the same tomorrow. Its opening is ever growing, the span above ever diminishing. The day after tomorrow, it may be gone.

Occasionally the changes are that dramatic. Though few people have ever seen a great chunk of rock fall from an arch, such events occur, and their results are startling. Until November 1940, the structure that we now call Skyline Arch was known as Arch-in-the-Making because more than half of its opening was filled by a huge sandstone block that had been fractured all around. Sometime that month–probably during a cold night after a wet day, when a pocket of water froze and expanded–the block fell, more than doubling the arch's span to its present 71-foot measure.

For the most part, though, the changes are gradual, all but imperceptible. Winter snow and ice quietly gnaw at the stone. The water of spring rain soaks into its pores, accumulates in cracks and pockets, and dissolves the glue that holds grains of sand together. Windstorms whip the loose sand abrasively about, rounding corners and smoothing surfaces. Summer cloudbursts carry tons of silt and sand down normally dry washes toward the Colorado River, which flows along the park's southeastern boundary. It is a process that never ceases, and in this stark, naked landscape of eye-aching brilliance it is almost possible to hear and feel the geologic forces at their perpetual work.

There are also innumerable sculpted monoliths, spires, butters, and cliffs–many the remnants of long-vanished arches. Some of them suggest the shapes of humans and animals, and people have given them appropriate names–the Three Gossips, the Parade of Elephants, the Marching Men, Queen Victoria, Dark Angel, Duck on the Rock, Sheep Rock, Eagle Rock. (The last is another example of dramatic change: in March 1941 the eagle-shaped rock that gave the formation its name fell off its high pedestal and broke into bits.)

Michelangelo said that statues are imprisoned in living stone; it was his job as a sculptor, working with hammer and chisel, to free them. Here in the broken desert landscape of Arches National Park, nature is the sculptor. Working at an infinitely slower pace than Michelangelo did, she has freed one of the world's great collections of abstract statuary from the grainy red rock in which it has long been locked.

In this vast outdoor gallery, many pieces are still emerging after tens of millions of years. Others have been worn away to stubs, which are themselves monumental forms. And some exist today at the peak of perfection, awesome in size, grandeur, and delicacy, each as individual as a fingerprint and each in a constant state of change.

The prime exhibits are, of course, the arches. More of them exist here than in any other place on earth–well over 2,000 by recent count–and they range in form and size from rounded windows only a yard or so wide, through walls of stone, to freestanding loops of ribbon-like rock as tall as apartment houses.

Delicate Arch, the park's symbol and star attraction, is a graceful hoop of salmon-colored sandstone about 65 feet high, with an opening nearly 35 feet wide. Cowboys used to call it the Schoolmarm's Bloomers for its distinctive silhouette, but today it is known by its more lyrical name because a spot on one leg has been worn nearly through. One day the arch will topple, but that day is probably long distant.

Landscape Arch, a span so thin it looks like ticker tape tossed from a high window, is 306 feet across, 106 feet high, and in one place perilously narrow. There is no engineering reason why it should stand, but there it is, defying time and gravity. Although Zion National Park's Kolob Arch once was thought to be longer than Landscape Arch, more recent measurements have shown that Landscape is the world's longest natural arch. And it is still the most breathtaking. Like all arches, Landscape is not the same today as it was yesterday, nor will it be the same tomorrow. Its opening is ever growing, the span above ever diminishing. The day after tomorrow, it may be gone.

Occasionally the changes are that dramatic. Though few people have ever seen a great chunk of rock fall from an arch, such events occur, and their results are startling. Until November 1940, the structure that we now call Skyline Arch was known as Arch-in-the-Making because more than half of its opening was filled by a huge sandstone block that had been fractured all around. Sometime that month–probably during a cold night after a wet day, when a pocket of water froze and expanded–the block fell, more than doubling the arch's span to its present 71-foot measure.

For the most part, though, the changes are gradual, all but imperceptible. Winter snow and ice quietly gnaw at the stone. The water of spring rain soaks into its pores, accumulates in cracks and pockets, and dissolves the glue that holds grains of sand together. Windstorms whip the loose sand abrasively about, rounding corners and smoothing surfaces. Summer cloudbursts carry tons of silt and sand down normally dry washes toward the Colorado River, which flows along the park's southeastern boundary. It is a process that never ceases, and in this stark, naked landscape of eye-aching brilliance it is almost possible to hear and feel the geologic forces at their perpetual work.

There are also innumerable sculpted monoliths, spires, butters, and cliffs–many the remnants of long-vanished arches. Some of them suggest the shapes of humans and animals, and people have given them appropriate names–the Three Gossips, the Parade of Elephants, the Marching Men, Queen Victoria, Dark Angel, Duck on the Rock, Sheep Rock, Eagle Rock. (The last is another example of dramatic change: in March 1941 the eagle-shaped rock that gave the formation its name fell off its high pedestal and broke into bits.)