Arches National Park, Utah. August 2010

Words cannot describe the grandeur of Arches. Of all the places I've traveled to, this little section of Utah had my undivided attention during a solid eight hour visit: my eyes were wide open, my jaw slack from awe...

Sunset, staring East onto the "Parade of Elephants."
Balanced Rock at sunset.
Delicate Arch, left at top center.

“A weird, lovely, fantastic object out of nature like Delicate Arch has the curious ability to remind us—like rock and sunlight and wind and wilderness—that out there is a different world, older and greater and deeper by far than ours, a world which surrounds and sustains the little world of men as sea and sky surround and sustain a ship. The shock of the real. For a little while we are again able to see, as the child sees, a world of marvels. For a few moments we discover that nothing can be taken for granted, for if this ring of stone is marvelous then all which shaped it is marvelous, and our journey here on earth, able to see and touch and hear in the midst of tangible and mysterious things-in-themselves, is the most strange and daring of all adventures.”

-Edward Abbey

Our hike down from one of a handful of double Arches.
Double Arch minutes before a monsoon.
The Parade of Elephants.

All photos by M.C.