Utah's Arches: A Landscape Sculpted by Wind, Water, and Time

Arches National Park in southeastern Utah contains the highest concentration of natural stone arches in the world — over 2,000 documented arches in an area of 310 square kilometres, ranging from small openings barely large enough to walk through to the 88-metre span of Landscape Arch, the longest natural arch in North America. The arches were formed over millions of years as slightly acidic groundwater dissolved the salt deposits beneath the Entrada Sandstone, causing the surface rock to crack and buckle; erosion then carved the cracks into fins of rock, and the fins into arches as the weaker sections collapsed.

Delicate Arch, the symbol of Utah and one of the most recognisable natural formations in the world, stands alone on the rim of a sandstone bowl above the Colorado River canyon, with the snow-capped La Sal Mountains as a backdrop. The arch is 16 metres tall and 10 metres wide, and its freestanding position — with nothing behind it but sky and mountains — gives it a quality of improbable elegance that photographs cannot fully capture. The hike to the arch is 4.8 kilometres round trip with an elevation gain of 150 metres, and the final approach across the slickrock bowl, with the arch appearing suddenly at the rim, is one of the great theatrical moments in American hiking.

The Windows Section of the park contains a concentration of large arches that can be reached by short trails from the road. The North and South Windows — two arches side by side, known as the Spectacles — frame a view of the La Sal Mountains that is one of the finest in the park. Double Arch, nearby, is a pair of arches that share a common base and create a double opening in the rock that is particularly dramatic in the late afternoon light. The Windows Section is the most accessible part of the park and is often crowded, but the arches are large enough that the crowds are absorbed without diminishing the experience.

The Fiery Furnace, a labyrinth of narrow sandstone canyons and fins in the centre of the park, can only be entered with a ranger or on a permitted self-guided tour. The name comes from the way the red sandstone glows in the late afternoon light, and the interior of the Furnace — a maze of passages barely wide enough to squeeze through, with arches and windows appearing unexpectedly overhead — is one of the most extraordinary landscapes in the American Southwest. The ranger-led tours are limited to 25 people and sell out weeks in advance.

The Colorado River, which flows along the southern boundary of the park, has carved the canyon landscape that provides the backdrop for many of the park's most dramatic views. The Dead Horse Point State Park, on a mesa above the Colorado River canyon just outside the park boundary, offers one of the most spectacular viewpoints in Utah — a 300-metre drop to the river below, with the canyon walls stretching to the horizon in every direction. The point was allegedly used as a natural corral for wild horses in the 19th century, with the narrow neck of the mesa serving as a gate.

Moab, the nearest town to Arches National Park, has become one of the outdoor recreation capitals of the American West — a base for mountain biking, rock climbing, river rafting, and off-road driving in addition to hiking in the national parks. The Slickrock Trail, a 19-kilometre mountain bike route on the sandstone fins above Moab, is one of the most famous and technically demanding mountain bike trails in the world. The Colorado and Green Rivers, which meet in Canyonlands National Park south of Moab, offer multi-day rafting trips through some of the most remote canyon country in North America.

The best time to visit Arches is in spring (March-May) or autumn (September-October), when the temperatures are comfortable for hiking and the light is at its most dramatic. The summer months of June through August are extremely hot — temperatures regularly exceed 38 degrees Celsius — and the park is at its most crowded. The park introduced a timed entry reservation system in 2022 to manage the crowds during peak season, and reservations must be made in advance. Sunrise and sunset are the best times to photograph the arches, when the low light turns the sandstone from orange to deep red and the shadows emphasise the three-dimensional quality of the formations.