Arch madness

The beautiful sandstone formations in Arches National Park can be viewed up close or from a distance, depending on how you feel about hiking.
By CATHY SECKMAN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
MOAB, Utah -- There's only one thing to do at Arches National Park, and that's look at arches. Tall arches, wide ones, dumpy ones and double ones. Happily, the arches are worth looking at.
It all starts with sandstone, water and gravity, which form the arches and then collapses them over thousands of years. Sand cements together to form rock, rock erodes into arches because of water undercutting, and gravity eventually breaks them down into sand again. Before the inevitable demise of the arches gathered in southern Utah, it's interesting to go and look at them.
Landscape Arch and Delicate Arch are probably the two best-known, and that's where the tourists head first. It's a bit disappointing to discover that you can't actually go to Landscape Arch, you have to look at it from a distance. That's because a 60-foot slab of sandstone cracked off the underside of the arch in 1991, while people were standing under it. Everyone was able to scramble to safety, but it was a near miss, and park officials decided to close the trail and make everyone stand back -- way back -- from the arch itself.
No easy trek
Delicate Arch is a better bet, because you can actually walk up to it and touch it. It's a tough walk, though, with no shade for the three-mile hike over open, slick rock. Instead of hiking to the arch, many people with less stamina or less time opt for the arch's viewpoint trails, located across a small canyon. One of the viewpoint trails is short and level, while the other is adventurous enough for anyone, climbing through scrub brush onto bare, slick rock and offering a spectacular, if long-distance view of the famous arch.
Besides these two, there are dozens of arches and rock formations in the park. It would require days to see them all, and plenty of strenuous hiking.
One of the interesting, arch-less areas of the park is Courthouse Towers, accessible on the easy and pleasant Park Avenue Trail. Along the one-mile trail, hikers can pick out formations with names such as the Three Gossips, Sheep Rock, the Organ and the Tower of Babel.
For visitors with plenty of time and nerve, the park offers a ranger-guided three-hour foray into the Fiery Furnace area, described as a "trail-less labyrinth of narrow canyons, through terrain that occasionally requires the use of hands and feet to scramble up and through narrow cracks and along ledges above dropoffs."
Varying levels
Sound exciting? Or not? Whether you're the adventurous type who loves the challenges of a Fiery Furnace area, or are content to stroll out to a scenic overlook, Arches National Park has just what you want.
But be aware that other than arches and pretty rock formations, the park doesn't offer much. Except in the single campground, there isn't so much as a flush toilet beyond the Visitor Center, let alone a restaurant or gift shop. Amenities are as sparse as the vegetation.
And speaking of vegetation, Arches is an environmentally sensitive area containing a lot of cryptobiotic soil crust. Cryptobiotic soil is black, knobby, brittle crust that looks dead but is critical to a healthy ecosystem. The slow-growing crust retains moisture and provides nutrients for plant growth and soil stability. Stepping on cryptobiotic crust can destroy decades of growth and allow wind and water erosion.
Everywhere in the park, signs warn hikers to stay on established paths or on slick rock so the cryptobiotic crusts aren't damaged. You know that old saying, "Take only photographs, leave only footprints?" Well, in Arches, you can't even leave a footprint. "Move like a shadow," the signs plead. "Leave no trace."
Even with the lack of facilities and the restrictions on hiking, Arches is worth a visit --- a long visit -- because of the truly sensational and fantastic beauty of the landscape.