The park contains the greatest density of natural arches in the world.    Elevations range from 4,085 to 5,653 feet above sea level. Very hot summers alternate with cold winters and very little rainfall. Even on a daily basis, temperatures may fluctuate as much as 50 degrees.

There are NO facilities or services within the park.  No gas, no lights, no water.  This is not the place to get castaway.  There isn't even a trash can to put trash into once you leave the main building and park exhibit area.  For any of the necessities of life, go back to Moab where you will find lodging, restaurants, fuel stores, and other services.

The Park Service asks that you don't even throw an apple core out the window or drop a cigarette butt on the ground.  Plan on bringing your trash home with you.  Bring anyone else's trash you find too.

  Two unusual natural features common in Arches intrigue both scientists and visitors: cryptobiotic soil and potholes. Cryptobiotic soil is a living groundcover that forms the foundation of high desert plant life.  Mosses and liverworts can tolerate long periods of complete dehydration and occupy a variety of habitats in the park, including cryptobiotic soil crusts, exposed rocks, backwater areas and sometimes trees. They do best in shady canyons, north-facing slopes and at the bases of shrubs. Most liverworts must be near water to survive, and are naturally very rare in this park.  At least 20 moss species are known to colonize cryptobiotic soil crusts, with Syntrichia caninervis being the most common. Grimmia orbicularis accounts for 80 percent of the moss you will find on rock surfaces.

With the crust so fragile in this area it is almost a miracle that any part of the park is open for travel.  Even so, signs constantly warn us to keep our feet and tires to ourselves and stay on the paved roads.  Not even pets are allowed off the roads and trails.  They must be kept on a leash at all times.

Balancing Rock can be seen for miles and hundreds of
different poses offer themselves to the photographer.

Plants and Animals

 Protection programs within Arches and Canyonlands National Parks have made short glimpses of the mountain goat more available. Even though they have learned to keep away from roads in the area there are more animals in the park. Ravens and other birds are seen more frequently than say, lizards and some rodents, though seasons and weather play a large role in determining what animals are active.

All in all, the Arches desert provides the essentials of life to 65 species of mammals, 190 bird species, 22 reptiles, 9 amphibians, 8 fish, and who can possibly count all the insects buzzing around out there?

Kangaroo rats, packrats, skunks, ringtail cats, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, bats and owls are less than plentiful, but still in existence here.

Mule deer are seen mostly in the Devil's Garden area.  Coyotes, porcupines, desert cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, and many songbirds prefer coming out in a dawn or dusk setting.  

Most of the snakes found in Arches National Park are harmless and prefer the cover of darkness for their movements.. All of them, given the opportunity, will cravenly crawl away from human confrontations. 

The little midget-faded rattlesnake lives in burrows and rock crevices and is mostly active at night.   This is a small subspecies of the western rattlesnake.  It does have an extremely toxic venom and doesn't like to crawl off out of sight as fast or as cravenly as its brothers.  Give it more time to get out of your way. 

I also saw a great number of frogs and small fish in the area.

Remember this adage when you can no longer resist the urge to feed a wild animal; you are also contributing to its death.  DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS.

In Arches National Park, tree diversity is greatest where water is plentiful. Netleaf hackberry, box elder, Russian olive, tamarisk and Fremont’s cottonwood grow in these areas. Both Russian olive and tamarisk are non-native species that can supplant native trees and significantly alter stream environments.  

The only tree I can associate with the above mentioned plant "tamarisk" is what we called a "salt cedar" in lower Arizona. Salt cedars are great for blackbirds and doves to build nests in, hide rattlesnakes with, and in a pinch, supply salt to the starving tongue.  Fire can be made with the slender dead limbs, good enough to cook fish and rabbit with. Dead leaves found near the trunk base can be mixed with mud and wrapped around birds and other small varmints to cook over hot coals.  The dead bark is edible if taken in small quantities.  While I've never seen any of them living on or in the trees I have seen flies, gnats, wild bees, wasps and mosquitoes visiting the salt cedar for reasons I could not discern.  I saw a lot of salt cedars in Arches so this is probably what is meant by "tamarisk" the taste is similar to the towering "tamarack" trees, also found in southern Arizona.

Some desert plants take advantage of the nights’ cooler temperatures to flower. These evening-blooming plants include evening primrose, sacred datura, sand verbena and yucca. 

According to Park Rangers, the yucca and the yucca moth have a fascinating nighttime association. After mating, the female moth gathers pollen from one yucca flower, packs it into a ball, and then flies into the night, locating other yucca flowers primarily by “smelling” with her antenna. She visits several flowers, each time laying some eggs in the base of the pistil and packing some of the pollen from her pollen ball down the pistil for her young to feed on. Thus she fertilizes the yucca flowers. Yucca flowers are only pollinated by yucca moths, and yucca moth young only feed on yucca pollen.