Under the Arches in Utah

A hot wind whips a creosote bush along the road and whirls it off across the sand like a mad dust devil as I pull into the carpark. The pulsing sun outside relentlessly tries to turn anything that isn't meant to be here (ie, humans) into has-beens.

The deserts have many ways to discourage human presence, from the chatter of a rattlesnake to the threat of almost certain death should you lose your way.

I am thinking along these cheery lines as I step from the air-conditioned comfort of my vehicle. Yep - it's every bit as hot and inhospitable as it looks, I decide, ramming my hat firmly on my head and checking to see I still have adequate water in my bottle.

So why am I wandering in such a hostile environment?

How does 2000 soaring natural rock arches sound for enticement? This is, after all, Arches National Park in the American state of Utah.

The gravity-defying wonders of natural rock formations have always sparked the human imagination. People will drive hundreds of kilometres across the middle of nowhere to stand in wonder at the foot of a rock formation.

Arches National Park is the place to be if you want to be stunned by amazing landscapes. Here you will not only find the world's greatest concentration of rock arches, but a big network of sealed roads and walking tracks.

You can easily immerse yourself in bizarre scenery of all kinds, from kilometres of towering pinnacles that resemble the eroded remnants of a lost city to balancing rocks and spires, all competing as scenic spectacles.

Taking to a walking trail, and being mindful not to wander off, I am soon amazed at the growth. Numerous desiccated looking plants spear defiant blossoms at the sun on long single stems.

Even the soil "grows".

The national park service goes to great lengths to inform visitors about their precious soil - tiny single cells of cyanobacteria are creating an entire living environment on the surface.

You can buy books and get free leaflets on the subject at the park centre, which displays huge information boards alongside tracks reminding people not to step off the path in case they damage the "cryptobiotic crust".

I come across an unprepossessing cliff. A little exploration along its base reveals an amazing frieze of engraved horse-mounted hunters riding after a flock of big-horn sheep.

The Spaniards introduced horses to the New World sometime after AD1500, so this must be a Ute Indian petroglyph, laboriously etched into the rock face during the past 500 years.

This region has so many imagination-defying landscapes (Canyonlands, Capital Reef and Bryce Canyon to name a few) that you never know what surprise waits around the next bend. Arches National Park is as different, yet every bit as inspiring. The only thing they all have in common is their grand scale.

The next bend provides a deep maze of narrow, sandy corridors that wander around the bases of huge red boulders. There is no breeze, and the heat shimmers in waves. Silence seems to pulse, but then I decide I am being fanciful, it must be my heartbeat thumping in my ears.

The trail soon climbs out on to a vast rock slope, tilted at a crazy angle. Countless gluttons for punishment have come this way, their boots wearing away at the rock, leaving a depression.

This is a famous trail, leading to Utah's best-known and loved arch, the one that appears on every Utah car number plate and in countless American television commercials - Delicate Arch.

Climbing now, I am rewarded by panoramic views to the east over the snow-capped La Sal mountains, shimmering like an icy hallucination above the desert.

When I first spy the famous arch, nature has gift-wrapped it for me, framing it in the sweeping span of Frame Arch. Straddling a ridge of glowing red sandstone, between an ancient pothole and a sheer cliff face, Delicate Arch literally has the power to stop you in your tracks. Water and ice, extreme temperatures and millions of years are responsible for this masterpiece.

I scramble up into the shade of Frame Arch and find a spot to sit and give justice to the view. The aura of time and silence is tangible. It reverberates off the red rock walls all around, like the tremors of an earthquake that are felt but not heard, making me dizzy with it's grandeur.

I am not sure how long I've been sitting here in awe when suddenly below a fellow- walker steps into the view to stand at the foot of Delicate Arch. The effect is dramatic. The sudden grasp of scale is dizzying.

He is reduced to insect status alongside the colossal arch, and I acknowledge that there's nothing quite like driving kilometres to the middle of nowhere to marvel at the foot of a rock.

Go-Utah.com

Arches National Park