Utah,
near Moab on Colorado,
arches of wonder
Utah,
a bit upstream of Colorado
The Colorado River flows and passes under the 191 just outside Moab to the north.
Still modest, its flow runs sometimes fast, and it'ssinuous between walls already encased.
About 20 meters wide, barely torrential and already very colorful, the Colorado will dig much further downstream its famous Grand Canyon , after passing through Canyonlands Park .
Going upstream for a few miles on Route 128, the scenic valley captivates by its encasement between the ocher walls and his "petrified" dunes.
Further upstream, a vast ranch welcomes wealthy tourists in a luxury hotel, in the middle of irrigated meadows, very well maintained.
The village of Castle Valley deploys a few steps away, barely visible, surrounded by greenery.
The valley is crisscrossed by a winding road passing through the alpine massif of La Sal (its summit at 3877m is snow-covered in winter) by which it's possible to return to Moab if desired.
the summits of La Sal
Here too, erosion shaped high boulders, ochres, sometimes purple or of a dark baked brown, and powerful tabular mesas, or pitons similar to those of Monument Valley.
It's surprising to find, on this short portion touristically uncrowded, except by a few courageous cyclists well hydrated under the merciless heat (a track is dedicated to them along the road) such a complete sample of landscapes representative of the region ..., apart from the arches.
Utah, a fantastic arch festival
Heading north from Moab just to the right of Route 191 is the 'Visitor Center" of the famous Arches National Park .
A comfortable road goes up in turns on the plateau, and enters the very wide dimensions of this park.
It goes from south to north through an embossed plateau, and travels a multitude of sites until a final dead end from where it will be necessary regretfully to come back.
here on the way back, with "oil painting" effect
Panoramas are superb in their diversity and the geological formations are spectacular, polymorphic, even when excluding the arches.
Information about geological formations comes from the panels that line the park.
"Petrified" dunes, mine landscapes where earth takes on the color of ash and veins in sulphate blue-green surroundings, rocky towers with scalloped peaks, vertical mille-feuille rocks : a treat.
Other panoramas like those of "Monument valley", all so strange and picturesque in their splendor generate enthusiasm ; they are sometimes the frame of films.
We will not go in the narrow and tortuous mini canyons, not very easy to access from "Fiery Furnace".
It's only possible if accompanied by a ranger whose service must be previously booked.
At "Visitor Center", somebody tells us that it's a "too difficult hike",... for us. What we willingly admit.
Most often, a little walking is necessary to reach and contemplate the arches under this merciless sun from which it's imperative to know how to protect yourself.
We don't forget that the humidity does not exceed 17% here, at more than 35 ° C, even if the altitude is about 1700 m.
In hotels and villages, mighty refrigerators, sometimes outside, deliver ice cubes free of charge, which can be taken away in plastic bags, then stuffed into a portable cooler.
At the entrance of the hiking trails, panels bear the following words in large letters: "Heat kills! ".
They call insistently which precautions have to be taken, which the rangers repeat to visitors.
Thus, whoever wants to go to the foot of "Delicate Arch" will have to travel 2.4 km one way and as much back on a long, regular and gigantic rocky ridge which leads there in one go, completely uncovered.
But small groups, bare head, with a few small bottles of water, are heading towards this arch.
Good luck the unconscious !!
This arch is a symbol of the State of Utah (especially on vehicle license plates).
We will see it from a mound and another angle, but exclusively thanks to the power of the zoom of our devices (see the slide show below ).
The heat will not have killed us.
The long, hard life of a sandstone arch
Buried under an enormous rocky layer, the sandstone undergoes a succession of uplifting-collapses, which create cracks, faults, here from a height of about 90 meters.
Then, after the erosion phenomena has deleted the upper rocky layer, the sandstone itself is exposed to weather, to climate, which together continue their long erosion work.
The hollows widen slowly, rock partitions (the fins), vertical slabs are formed.
The runoff (here rains are rare, but violent) dissolve the "cement" which ensures the sandstone cohesion. With the effect of frost, the sandstone flakes, crumbles. Rocks can collapse and create an opening.
Erosion increases the openings, to the point of forming the arches that we see today.
Then one day, inexorably, it ends up destroying them by collapsing, after having created them.
Arches are rarely seen at the bottom of a canyon or valley.
But if so, as for "Rainbow Bridge National Monument" which we haven't seen upstream of Lake Powell , it results from erosion by the river passing below.
And the arch becomes a bridge.
In other words
take a high rock bar of reasonable thickness (no more than a few meters), placed if possible at the top of a ridge.
Let frost, wind, dust play for millions of years, the infernal solar heat, drought, the unchanging cycle of seasons and contractions-dilations.
Slightly, because of the gradients of hardness of the rock, this one gradually hollows out on one side, and perhaps on the other of the wall ; whose thickness diminishes, soon becoming a rocky membrane.
Then the convexities end up joining.
One morning a lizard stirring his coffee, or a dinosaur strolling around here, his paws in the cuffs of his overalls, tells to himself "there is something here! Yesterday I was going to Jurassic Wal Mart, that hole wasn't there !!". And to make sure comes to feel the edges of the end of his claws.
A small window ended up being pierced where the wind whistles.
The rest is still a matter of long time, but most of it is done.
However, even perched on their summit, the arches have the modesty of sissies or the certainty that their wild beauty must remain confidential, to be preserved.
So much so that they offer their best profile only after having sometimes walked for a long time on well-groomed tracks.
Then, it's a big contest.
Each of the arches thus formed wants to do better than its neighbor, here in a short tunnel, elsewhere in a multiple bridge, or isolated on a huge rocky platform, or partnering with a neighboring twin arch, or else throwing a huge and very thin rocky arch of remarkable elegance.
At the approach, this site present all the varieties of arches, one outlined in the center, the other in a crypt-cave on the right, and a multiple arch on the left
The vault of some others, however, has already fallen ; only the outline of the truncation remains on both sides (if we are to believe the specialists).
Elsewhere, a crazy rock of some 3,500 tonnes and 17m high, the "Balanced Rock", remains in fragile equilibrium on a high natural pillar (39 m -17 m = 22 m high) which runs out of breath endlessly playing the caryatids.
A couple of two young alpinists climbed almost to the top of another vertical rock, impressing surrounding visitors.
Elsewhere still, tall, thin ridges of rock ocher, as if juxtaposed on the ground, form a narrow parade in large vertical millefeuille.
The bottom is of fine red sand which penetrates everywhere and also makes certain passages slippery on the dry and sloping rock.
This rocky millefeuille cotains another arch, astonishing and sumptuous with golden reflections, on a slope of thick sand.
It seems shaped like the protective covering of the fingers of two opposite hands, or the kiss of two sea monsters fixed.
