Chiseled by the powerful forces of wind and water, this surprising natural rock garden contains the planet's most remarkable collections of abstract sculpture. Arches National Park sits on a great plateau in southeastern Utah, encompassing a stark landscape of broken red sandstone. The park contains more than 950 natural stone arches. But these spectacular sandstone portals are only part of Arches' stunning

landscape. Well-preserved petroglyphs carved into a cliff in the park testify that people have inhabited the region for a long time. The pictures depict riders on horseback, indicating that the carvings were made sometime after the middle of the sixteenth century. These petroglyphs increase our sense of the timelessness of this place affording many photography opportunities.

A fantasyland in rock, the park is filled with giant balanced rocks that look as though they are about to teeter and fall. Glistening slickrock domes are inlaid with swirls of stone cut by red sandy washes and dotted with wildflowers in spring.

Arches is perched atop the Colorado Plateau, and stretching from western Colorado across southern Utah. This area contains the nation's greatest wealth of national parks. It is a place teeming with scenic treasure almost beyond belief: mountains, gorges, rushing rivers, great canyons, escarpments, buttes, spires, pinnables, and endless stretches of starkly lovely desert landscape.

High above the Colorado River, Arches National Park has been shaped by anon after aeon of weathering by rain, snow, ice, and wind. Most of the formations in the park are composed of Entrada sandstone, which geologists say was part of a low arid coastal plain adjacent to a great inland sea 150 to 200 million years ago. Over time the sand was covered by layers of sediment and hardened into rock. Then the land was lifted up, tilted, and eroded until the Entrada layer was exposed to the weather. At first water and wind cracked the exposed sandstone. Then narrow canyons and gullies were scoured out of the stone, leaving thin walls called fins in between.

The park contains more than 950 natural stone arches. But these spectacular sandstone portals are only part of Arches' stunning landscape. Well-preserved petroglyphs carved into a cliff in the park testify that people have inhabited the region for a long time. The pictures depict riders on horseback, indicating that the carvings were made sometime after the middle of the sixteenth century. These petroglyphs increase our sense of the timelessness of this place.

The final phase in the process, as we see it today, occurred as wind and frost brushed away at the soft interior area of some of these fins, eventually perforating them with a window. This gradually enlarged until the window became an arch. The park's most photographed attraction, Delicate Arch.

Delicate Arch, which is 65 feet tall and 35 feet wide, perches precariously on the rim of a canyon. The arch is all that remains of a sandstone wall, or fin.

We know that the landscape here is constantly changing. Such natural spectacles as the Fiery Furnace, a labyrinth of salmon-colored Entrada sandstone fins could one day become arches. But today we admire them as they appear to turn into tongues of fire when the sun is low in the sky.

Devil's Garden Trail is located at the northern end of the scenic drive through Arches. Its two miles of easy walking convey visitors through a breathtaking natural sculpture garden. With the snowcapped La Sal Mountains rising in the distance, the dunes are a spectacle of form and contrast. Other sights are equally spectacular, Balanced Rock.

Geologists estimate that it has taken nature 60 million years to create this masterpiece and expect it will take millions more years to erode the spire and topple the rock.

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