Arches National Park and Natural Bridges National Monument preserves over 2,000 natural sandstone arches. In some areas, the forces of nature have exposed millions of years of geologic history. The extraordinary features of the parks create a landscape of contrasting colors, landforms, and textures that is unlike any other in the world.  In 1929, President Herbert Hoover signed legislation creating Arches National Monument, to protect the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other sandstone formations.  Interestingly, the park's most famous arch, the picturesque main subject of this collection, Delicate Arch, was not even included in the initial land grant under Hoover. It would take a 1938 expansion of the park by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to include it and other famous rock formations. Arches National Monument became Arches National Park in 1971.

Mentioned throughout descriptions in this image release, are fitting quotes from renowned author Edward Abbey, noted for his advocacy of environmental issues.  Early in his career, he worked in the monuments in 1956 and 1957, maintaining trails, greeting visitors, and collecting campground fees.  In Abbey's fourth book, Desert Solitaire, published in 1968, Abbey describes his stay in the Canyonlands, and the work is regarded as one of the finest nature narratives in American literature.  The book is interspersed with observations and discussions about the various tensions; physical, social, and existential, between humans and the desert environment. A typical Abbey quote typifies Artwestimage.com's staff views on adventure excursions featured on this site. "Hard work. And risky. Too much for some, who have given up the struggle on the highways, in exchange for an entirely different kind of vacation out in the open, on their own feet, following the quiet trail through forests and mountains, bedding down in the evening under the stars, when and where they feel like it, at a time where the Industrial Tourists are still hunting for a place to park their automobiles."

 

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