Arches National Park ⓘ

An archive is a collection of documents, records, and other materials that are created or received by an organization, family, or person. The National Park Service archives collects and preserves records vital to the function and mission of the NPS and they are permanent records preserved for the life of the organization. These records are valuable to the government for legal and fiscal purposes and serve as evidence of past work. The archives continue to inform park managers about how each parks’ resources have been cared for in the past and how best to continue that mission into the future. The Arches National Park archives preserves information pertaining to archeology, geology, history, wildlife habitat, plant life, hydrology, and more as part of the NPS mission. NPS also accepts collections donated by organizations, persons, and families directly related to the history of the parks. An archive is also a physical place where you can gather firsthand facts, data, and evidence from letters, reports, notes, memos, photographs, and other primary sources. In this case, NPS archives serve as the raw material for writing the histories of the organization and individual parks. The archives also holds evidence of trends in environmentalism, conservationism, outdoor recreation, family vacationing, as well as other issues important to the American public. One exciting reality of archives and the study of history is that we don’t always know how the archives will be used in the future or what historians will research.

Anyone interested in using the park archives can request to use the collections by appointment only. Also, we lack the physical archives space to accommodate more than one researcher at a time for the four parks we manage. If you are interested in using the archives, you will need to fill out a research request, [122k PDF] , read and sign the Guidelines for Use policy [122k PDF] , and return the forms to the archivist. You may use the finding aids below to determine if we have information you are interested in viewing. We have more finding aids that are not web-ready, therefore it is best to e-mail the archivist if you do not find what you are looking for--we may be able to send you a finding aid in pdf format. To request scans of documents or photographs, please read the Interim Duplication Services [171k PDF] guidelines and fill out and return the form. Have questions? You may e-mail the archivist .

Museums collect, preserve, study and interpret natural and cultural materials that have been assembled according to a collections plan. The vast majority of holdings in National Park Service (NPS) museums are derived from within the park boundaries or from areas closely associated with the parks. NPS museums collect objects specific to the mission of the individual parks and interpret those collections in their original context. The collections pertain to a particular NPS site. A strong association with place continues to distinguish park museums and collections.

Another distinguishing characteristic of NPS museums is that they are part of a larger NPS museum system . The NPS museum system provides broad representation of the heritage of the United States. The scope of the system is wider than most public or private institutions. The NPS museum system is the largest such system in the world.

The purposes of a cultural resource collection are to preserve a portion of our nation's cultural heritage, to increase knowledge through research, and to provide for exhibits and ranger programs.

The cultural collection from Arches National Park is divided into archeology and history. We do not have an ethnology collection, but an ethnographic study of Arches National Park was recently completed. Cultural collections are desirable only if they have a primary association with the park—originating from within park boundaries or associated with a person or persons significant in park history.

The purpose of the natural history collection is to establish a permanent database of the indigenous and exotic plants in the park for interpretation and research purposes; and to collect and preserve endemic or locally significant animal specimens (skeletal, skins, etc.) for specific interpretation and research purposes. The Arches Natural History Collection consists primarily of specimens for geology, paleontology, significant wildlife specimens, and a herbarium.

The Arches National Park museum collection is primarily housed in Moab, Utah, and Tucson, Arizona. Researchers interested in using the Arches collections should contact the collections manager to find out what we have and where the items are located. Email is the best form of communication.

Rock paintings and peckings are often found at crossroads or near waterways. One such site can be seen a few miles north of Moab, where Courthouse Wash joins the Colorado River. This large and colorful panel displays evidence of people's passage for hundreds of years.

Although rock markings cannot be dated, it is thought that Archaic Indians first painted the long, tapered figures in what archeologists call the Barrier Canyon style. Later, ancestral Puebloans or Utes added bright white circular forms that resemble shields. Petroglyphs - images pecked, incised or abraded on stone - by Utes appear elsewhere on the wall and adjacent boulder, and on the walkway below.

In 1980, this ancient panel was vandalized. The National Park Service cleaned the panel, and restoration work revealed older pictographs beneath the white shields. While the original brilliant pigments are gone forever, their absence provided an opportunity to use new technologies to gather additional information about the panel. In 2008, as part of the Multi-Spectral Imaging Project , the panel was photographed in the infrared spectrum, and a comparison with a regular photograph revealed figures not previously visible to the naked eye. Archeologists are using this exciting information to establish a new baseline from which to monitor change in the panel and analyze the order in which individual elements were painted.

Most damage to rock markings are done inadvertantly. Help preserve rock markings by not touching them, and by not leaving marks or graffiti on them or other canyon walls.

People have come to the area that is now Arches National Park for thousands of years. The earliest visitors weren't just sight-seeing, though. Hunter-gatherers migrated into the area about 10,000 years ago at the end of an Ice Age. As they explored Courthouse Wash and the Salt Valley area, they found pockets of chert and chalcedony: two forms of microcrystalline quartz perfect for making stone tools. Chipping or knapping these rocks into dart points, knives, and scrapers, they created debris piles that are still visible to the trained eye.

Then, roughly two thousand years ago, the nomadic hunters and gatherers began cultivating certain plants and settled the Four Corners region. These early agriculturalists, known as ancestral Puebloans , raised domesticated maize, beans, and squash, and lived in villages like those preserved at Mesa Verde National Park . Evidence shows that farming climaxed between 500 CE and 1300 CE. A change in climate that made farming more difficult may have been a driving factor in a decline in farming.

Few dwellings have been found in Arches, which was the northern edge of ancestral Puebloan territory, so it's possible they only visited seasonally - or that their dwellings have been lost to time. What does remain, though, are their drawings. Rock markings panels are an invitation to wonder: Who made this? What were they thinking? Like earlier people, the ancestral Puebloans also left lithic scatters, often near waterholes where someone may have shaped tools while watching for game.

The Fremont-era cultures were contemporaries of the ancestral Puebloans who lived just to the northwest. Distinctions between the two cultures are blurry, though certain characteristics of Fremont-era rock markings, pottery, and other artifacts clearly demonstrate the existence of different technologies and traditions.

For a variety of reasons, people began leaving the region about 700 years ago. Descendants of the ancestral Puebloans include people living in modern-day pueblos like Acoma, Cochiti, Santa Clara, Taos, and the Hopi Mesas.

As the ancestral Puebloan people were leaving, nomadic Shoshonean peoples such as the Ute and Paiute entered the area and were here to meet the first Europeans. The petroglyph panel near Wolfe Ranch is believed to have some Ute images since it shows people on horseback, and horses were quickly adopted by the Utes after being re-introduced to this continent by the Spanish.

Indigenous traders The first Europeans to explore the Southwest were Spaniards. As Spain's New World empire expanded, they searched for travel routes across the deserts to their California missions. Often their trails stitched together pathways used by Indigenous traders for centuries. One of these routes, called the Old Spanish Trail , linked Santa Fe and Los Angeles along the same path, past the park visitor center, that US 191 takes today.

The first known date for explorers within what is now Arches comes from an unusual source. Denis Julien, a French-American fur trapper with a habit of chiseling his name and the date onto rocks throughout the Southwest, left an inscription in this area on June 9, 1844. He was over 60 years old when he explored the area's streams and canyons trapping beaver pelts, which were highly prized then due to a fashion trend in men's hats.

More traders and trappers rode their dusty horses through the Moab region for decades before any non-indigenous people attempted to settle the area. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints established an outpost called the Elk Mountain Mission in what is now Moab in June of 1855, but conflicts with local Utes caused them to abandon the effort. In the 1880s and 1890s, Moab was settled again by a mix of ranchers, prospectors, and farmers. One enterprising settler, John Wesley Wolfe, built his cabin in a beautiful spot near Salt Wash where park visitors may still see it today .

Every small town needs a good newspaper, and early Moab was no exception. The beauty of the red rock country around Arches was glowingly described in print by Loren "Bish" Taylor, who took over the Moab newspaper in 1911 when he was just eighteen years old. Bish editorialized for years about the marvels of Moab, and loved exploring and describing the rock wonderland just north of the frontier town. Some of his journeys were with John "Doc" Williams, Moab's first doctor. As Doc rode his horse north to ranches and other settlements, he often climbed out of Salt Valley to the spot now called Doc Williams Point, stopped to let his horse rest and looked back over the fabulously colored rock fins.

Word spread. Alexander Ringhoffer, a prospector, wrote to the Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1923 in an effort to publicize the area and gain support for creating a national park. Ringhoffer led railroad executives on hikes into the formations; they were impressed and believed such wonders would certainly attract more railroad customers, so the campaign began. The government sent research teams to investigate and gather evidence.

On April 12, 1929, President Herbert Hoover signed presidential proclamation No. 1875 reserving 1,920 acres in the Windows and 2,600 acres in the Devils Garden for the purpose of establishing Arches National Monument. Since that time, the park's boundaries have been expanded several times. In 1971, Congress changed the status of Arches to National Park, recognizing over 10,000 years of human history that flourished in this now-famous landscape of rock.

Finding arches in this fractured landscape isn't as easy as it might sound. As recently as 1970, official literature stated that the park contained "nearly 90 arches," which is less than 0.05% of the current known total. It took a group of dedicated, curious "arch-hunters" to establish a scientific protocol for surveying the park and documenting its over 2,000 namesake features.

Dale Stevens, a geography professor, conducted the first scientific study of arches in the park beginning in 1973. He and his team developed a standardized method for measuring and recording arches. Ed McCarrick was a ranger at Arches in the 1970s and 1980s, and he, along with Stevens and Chris Moore, authored several books on the arches they documented. Doug Travers and his sons developed their own database for arches they located, while many others were found by Reuben Scolnik and Steve Frederick.

Three decades of concentrated exploration and discovery put many "new" arches on the map. Do you think they've all been found?

Natural forces created the landscape of Arches, which contains the greatest density of natural arches in the world. Rock layers tell a story of deposition, erosion, and other geologic events. Arches is in a "high desert" environment , with hot summer temperatures, cool winters, and infrequent precipitation. Desert conditions determine the kind of life forms that live here. We can witness natural process and conditions thanks to the park's isolation from major urban areas. Explore the links below to learn more about the nature of Arches.

Learn about other life forms on the landscape including lichens and biological soil crusts.

Throughout the park, rock layers tell a story of millions of years of deposition, erosion and other geologic events.

Various factors including air quality, dark skies, disturbed lands, and exotic species contribute to our experience at Arches.

Have you ever taken a picture of a flower, or butterfly, or an unusual mushroom? You can also keep track of the biodiversity you see when you are in a national park, or where ever you go, with iNaturalist. Learn more about how you can help document the various life forms in our national parks. Explore Biodiversity . Check out the Arches iNaturalist project.

Birds are the most visible animals in Arches. Even on the hottest summer day, turkey vultures, ravens , and white-throated swifts circle above the rock formations. During winter, juncos and white-crowned sparrows forage around trees and shrubs. While Arches may not be considered a bird watching hot spot, nearly 200 species have been seen in the park, including seasonal and year-round residents as well as migrants.

Arches owes much of this diversity to riparian corridors like Courthouse Wash and the Colorado River (which forms the park’s southern boundary). In the desert, animal life tends to concentrate around riparian areas because of the abundance of food, water and shelter. During spring and summer, songs from birds like blue grosbeaks, yellow-breasted chats, spotted towhees, and canyon wrens fill these areas. You might see great blue herons hunting the shallows for fish, while Cooper’s hawks deftly maneuver through the tangle of trees beyond the riverbanks.

Many birds favor the “upland” areas where grasses, shrubs and small trees dominate. Say’s phoebes, black-throated sparrows and western meadowlarks frequent grasslands. Pinyon jays, scrub jays, juniper titmice and black-throated gray warblers are usually seen in pinyon-juniper woodlands.

Since they can fly, it is difficult to generalize about what birds will be found in a particular habitat. However, regardless of habitat or season, the common raven figures prominently in the desert landscape. Ravens are intelligent birds that, according to scientists, display abilities to play and problem-solve that are rare among animals. This jet-black member of the crow family is also very vocal, using a variety of sounds for communication. Perhaps because of these qualities, ravens have achieved a certain stature in both European and Native American folklore.

Arches monitors bird populations at several selected locations in both upland and riparian areas. Some surveys count all birds, while others focus on birds that actually nest in the park, such as peregrine falcons . Findings from these surveys and others like them are used to monitor the health of local bird populations and estimate species richness throughout the country.

Many visitors are surprised at the amount of vegetation in Arches. Plants are critical components of all ecosystems, and Arches is no exception. Plants capture particulate dust in the air, filter gaseous pollutants, convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, provide animal habitat and possess many raw materials useful to humans. Diverse plant communities thrive in patches of biological soil crust , while others seem to grow right out of cracks in the rock. Many adaptations enable desert plants to survive the extremes of temperature and aridity found in Arches. These adaptations are grouped in three categories: drought escapers, drought resistors and drought evaders.

Drought escapers are plants that make use of favorable growing conditions when they exist. These plants are usually annuals that grow only when enough water is available. Seeds may lie dormant for years if conditions are not favorable. Most grasses are escapers, as are wildflowers that bloom after seasonal rains during spring or late summer.

Drought resistors are typically perennials. Many have small, spiny leaves that reduce the impact of solar radiation, and some may drop their leaves if water is unavailable. Spines and hairy leaves act to reduce exposure to air currents and solar radiation, limiting the amount of water lost to evaporation. Cacti , yuccas and mosses are examples of drought resistors. Yuccas have extensive taproots that are able to use water beyond the reach of other plants. Moss , a plant not commonly associated with deserts, thrives because it can tolerate complete dehydration: when rains finally return, mosses green up immediately.

Drought evaders , the final group, survive in riparian areas where water is plentiful. Monkey flower , columbine and maidenhair fern are found in well-shaded alcoves near seeps or dripping springs. Cottonwoods and willows require a lot of water, and only grow along river corridors and intermittent streams where their roots can reach the water table easily.

Soil chemistry and depth are also important factors that influence where plants grow. Deep soils tend to be covered with grasses. Shrubs like blackbrush and purple sage favor shallow sandy soil, while greasewood and Mormon tea are signs of alkalinity. The dominant plant community in Arches, the pinyon - juniper woodland, colonizes rocky soils and fractured bedrock.

Non-native plant species can also be found at Arches. Tamarisk lines waterways throughout the Colorado River drainage system with its feathery foliage, and Russian thistle (also known as tumbleweed) lines many trails and roadsides with its distinctive thorns.

Though the natural quiet of Arches often creates the impression of lifelessness, many animals live here.The most frequently sighted animals include birds , lizards , and some small mammals , though seasons and weather play a large role in determining what animals are active.

Desert animals have a variety of adaptations for dealing with the temperature and moisture stresses present in Arches. Most desert animals are nocturnal, being most active at night. This can be an adaptation to both predation and hot summer daytime temperatures. Mostly nocturnal animals include kangaroo rats, woodrats (also called packrats), and most other small desert rodents, skunks, ringtails, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, bats, and owls.

Animals that are most active at dawn and dusk are called “crepuscular.” These times of day are cooler than mid-day. The half-dark makes prey animals less visible, yet visibility is good enough to locate food. Some animals are crepuscular mostly because their prey is crepuscular. Crepuscular animals include mule deer, coyotes, porcupines, desert cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, and many songbirds.

A few desert animals are primarily active during the day, or “diurnal.” These include rock squirrels, antelope squirrels, chipmunks, lizards, snakes, hawks, and eagles. Many animals have a temperature range in which they are active, so alter their active times of day depending on the season. Snakes and lizards go into an inactive state of torpor during the winter, are active during the day during the late spring and early fall, and become crepuscular during the heat of summer. Many insects alter their times of activity. Mosquitoes, for example, may be out at night, at dawn, dusk or all day but not at night, depending on the temperatures.

Arches lies near the heart of a desert called the “Colorado Plateau.” Deserts form when weather patterns or geographic land forms create an environment where lack of water limits biotic productivity. Water may exist in an unusable form such as ice, or may be absent altogether. There are four basic types of desert: high pressure, rain shadow, interior continental and coastal. High pressure deserts generally form at the middle latitudes (30 degrees) in each hemisphere where warm, dry air masses descend toward the earth's surface. Rain shadow deserts form in localized high pressure zones caused by warm, dry air descending from mountain ranges. The Colorado Plateau is also in the interior of a large continent, far away from significant water sources.

Because of the elevations throughout the region, with a mean of around 3,000 feet and peaks over 12,000 feet above sea level, the Colorado Plateau is also known as a cold or high desert. Though low humidity allows greater penetration of solar radiation, winter air temperatures frequently drop below freezing. In turn, summertime air and especially ground temperatures can reach levels lethal for many organisms. After sunset, the ground rapidly loses heat to the night sky and ambient air temperatures may drop significantly before dawn. Temperature fluctuations of over 40 degrees in a 24-hour period are not uncommon.

Arches receives more precipitation than many other deserts: about 9 inches annually. August is generally the wettest month, as weather systems from the southwest bring brief, intense tropical storms. However, precipitation is highly variable both temporally and spatially. During a single storm, one area may receive significantly more or less water than a neighboring spot less than a mile away.

Almost 50 species of mammal are known to live in Arches. Some, like desert cottontails, kangaroo rats and mule deer, are common and may be seen by a majority of visitors. However, many desert animals are inactive during daylight hours or are wary of humans, so sightings can be truly special events. Tracks and scat are the most common signs of an animal’s presence.

Arches’ hot climate and lack of water favors small mammals. Because of their size, these animals are less able to migrate, but have an easier time finding shelter and require less food and water to live. Rodents are numerous: there are eleven species of mice and rats alone.

One animal uniquely adapted to life in the desert is the kangaroo rat. This rat lives its entire life consuming nothing but plant matter. Its body produces water by metabolizing the food it eats. However, even the kangaroo rat is prone to spending the hottest daylight hours sleeping in a cool underground burrow and may even plug the opening with dirt or debris for insulation.

Larger mammals, like mule deer and mountain lions, must cover more territory in order to find food and water, and sometimes migrate to nearby mountains during summer. In Utah, around 80% of a mountain lion’s diet consists of mule deer, so these animals are never far apart. However, unlike mule deer, mountain lion sightings are very rare.

Desert bighorn sheep live year-round in Arches, yet are rarely sighted. Some visitors may see them along Highway 191 south of the visitor center. These animals roam the talus slopes and side canyons near the Colorado River, foraging on plants and negotiating the steep, rocky terrain with the greatest of ease. Once in danger of becoming extinct, the desert bighorn are now making a tentative comeback that has been fueled by the healthy herds in nearby Canyonlands National Park. An unexpected sight in red rock country, black bears occasionally wander down from the nearby La Sal Mountains. These visits generally occur in late August and September.

Hikers at the base of Double Arch NPS/D. Dunajski Arches contains a variety of hiking trails, many of which are considered easy to moderate. Trails provide access to outstanding viewpoints and arches not visible from the road. Many trails use cairns (stacks of rocks) for markers and cross broad rock surfaces, requiring attention to follow.

For details like grade, tread width, and cross slope for each trail, see the Physical Accessibility page of this website. Protect Yourself Each year, park rangers respond to hundreds of search and rescue incidents in the park. Many involve heat and sun exposure, twisted knees or ankles, or getting lost. Before hiking, review our safety page for tips on having a safe and enjoyable visit. Protect Your Park Watch Your Step. Help us protect biological soil crusts during your visit. Please walk only on trails, rock or in sandy washes (where water flows when it rains), and keep all vehicles and bikes on designated roads. Protect Ephemeral Pools. Sandstone basins called ephemeral pools or potholes are home to a variety of life. Tiny organisms depend on the water in these shallow pools. To protect these life forms, please do not swim, bathe, or drink the water in desert potholes, and do not walk through dry ones. Keep off the Arches. To promote visitor safety and the opportunity to view natural features undisturbed, climbing, scrambling, walking or standing upon, or rappelling off any arch is prohibited in the park. Leave the Rocks as You See Them. Graffiti —carving, scratching, chalking, or any type of marking—is illegal and unsightly. If you see someone marking on the rocks, please report it to a ranger. Learn how to be a good visitor to archeological sites .

Arches contains a variety of hiking trails, many of which are considered easy to moderate. Trails provide access to outstanding viewpoints and arches not visible from the road. Many trails use cairns (stacks of rocks) for markers and cross broad rock surfaces, requiring attention to follow. For details like grade, tread width, and cross slope for each trail, see the Physical Accessibility page of this website.