Utah National Parks

 

General Info & Web sites

Arches National Park is known for its natural sandstone arches and unique formations, carved by the powerful forces of water, frost and wind. Visitors to the park can see over 2,000 arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch. Arches National Park is located near Moab, Utah in red-rock country, overlooking the gorge of the Colorado River.

• U.S. National Park Service
• Student Guide to Arches (pdf)
• Utah National Parks
• History and Culture
• Nature and Science
• Curriculum Resources For Teachers
• Utah History Encyclopedia

 

Maps / Mileage Chart

• NPS Printable Map (pdf)
  The full-color map that's handed out at the entrance station. Includes trails, roads and points of interest.
  
• Google Map
  Browser based map of the park. Click and drag maps to view adjacent sections immediately. View satellite images of the park that you can zoom and pan.
  
• Google Map with Site Markers
  Small pictures of the locations are included with the markers. All locations on this map are extremely accurate and based off of a National Geographic Trail Map.
• Arches National Park Map (jpg)
  Created by Justin Morris

 

Photos

• Utah Collections
  A collection of pictures, videos and documents related to the park.
• Arches National Park - Photo Gallery
  Pictures of Arches National Park.
• Arches Slide Show
  Photo Gallery of Arches National Park by Moab Utah.
• Go-Utah.com
  Arches National Park, Utah Photo Gallery - Beautiful photos, pictures, images.
• nps.gov
  US National Park Service photo gallery of Arches.
• OhRanger.com
  Photos of Arches National Park.
• TrekEarth
  This Arches National Park photo gallery is part of the TrekEarth Photo Gallery, a website devoted to photos from around the world.

 

Sights to See

Average Temperatures
January	44°F	22°F
February	52°F	28°F
March	64°F	35°F
April	71°F	42°F
May	82°F	51°F
June	93°F	60°F
July	100°F	67°F
August	97°F	66°F
September	88°F	55°F
October	74°F	42°F
November	56°F	33°F
December	45°F	23°F

• Balanced Rock - a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses
• Courthouse Towers - a collection of tall stone columns
• Dark Angel - a free-standing column of dark stone at the end of the Devil's Garden trail
• Delicate Arch - a lone-standing arch which has become a symbol of Utah
• Devil's Garden - with many arches and columns scattered along a ridge
• Double Arch - two arches that share a common end
• Fiery Furnace - an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns (see biblical reference Fiery Furnace)
• Landscape Arch - a very thin, very long arch over 300 feet (100 m); the largest in the park
• Petrified Dunes - petrified remnants of sand dunes blown from the ancient lakes that covered the area.

 

Park Activities

 

World's Biggest Arch

Arch in Utah national park called world's biggest

By Mike Stark

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah state geologists and a group of intrepid volunteers say they've finally answered a nagging geological question: What's the longest natural arch in the world?

The answer, they say, is Landscape Arch in Arches National Park in southeastern Utah.

Of course, it all depends on how you measure it. But members of the all-volunteer Natural Arch and Bridge Society spent years developing a standardized measurement that looks at the widest horizontal opening in each arch — not the arch itself.

Using that yardstick, they found that Landscape Arch spanned about 290 feet. Kolob Arch in Zion National Park came in at 3 feet shorter.

Grant Willis, a geological mapper at the Utah Geological Survey, said the group's survey — which ranks the top 10 arches in the world — finally offers definitive answers about the arches with the longest spans.