Arches National Park and its environs has been generating a lot of news lately. In December 2008, Tim DeChristopher sabotaged the Bush administration's midnight auctions of oil and gas leases near Arches. (Yay!) DeChristopher was arrested (boo!), protests and legal defense funds following as day follows night (yay!). Next, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar revoked 77 of the leases (yay!), saying that he'll reconsider them (boo!) after his proposed deputy David Hayes (yay!) gets confirmed...but Bob Bennett (R-UT) succeeds in blocking Hayes' nomination because Salazar rescinded the leases (boo!). Three oil & gas companies who held leases on adjacent lands sued to force Salazar to give them the new leases (boo!). Meanwhile, the credit card legislation that Obama says he wants to sign has been hijacked by the Senate's guns-in-national-parks amendment (boo!). I've counted four yays and five boos, but I'm glossing over nuance, and even the simplistic account above is enough to make one's head spin.
But why? Why is this one small park generating so much fuss? After all, Arches is getting a truly miniscule amount of stimulus funds, only $78,000 to construct a flood diversion wall (warning: long pdf). By comparison, Bryce is getting $579K to make a bathroom ADA-compliant and repair a trail, and Zion is getting $945K for energy efficiency and related matters.
I'm not going to write a dissertation on history, nuance, and political ins and outs of the oil and gas leases. Others have diaried the story, most recently here. Tim DeChristopher has joined DKos. His Bidder 70 dot org has news, politics, and a request for donations -- preferably before his July 6 trial. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has been fighting for this and other deserving lands.
Nor am I going to rant about Tom Coburn's amendment to the credit card legislation, of all the goofy places to stick a guns-in-national-parks law. Suffice to say that neither poaching nor crime is an issue in Arches, but lead bullets poison animals. Notice President Obama's utter failure to comment on this amendment. I fear the amendment will stay in and he'll sign the bill despite the poison pill amendment.
Instead, see for yourself why Arches is a special place.
If you've ever seen a Utah license plate, you know this! (Photo: NPS)
If you stay in your car, you will never see Delicate Arch. If you can only walk a hundred yards on a wheelchair-accessible trail, you will have a far-off distant view of it. But if you can hike a 1.3 mile moderately easy hike (500' elevation gain) to Delicate Arch, you can sit inside the arch itself, which is way-beyond-cool. The trail starts at a late 1800s homestead, then goes up over a slickrock sandstone outcrop, then along a wash and up again. The arch is hidden until the last few hundred feet of the hike; then you come around a corner of rock, and suddenly there it is, like a Twilight Zone portal into another dimension, standing solitary at the brink of a cliff, with pristine desert land below and mountains beyond. If you only have two hours in Arches, skip the T-shirt purchase and instead hike here. Your soul will thank you.
Of course, what this arch really needs to frame is not the LaSal mountains, but rather lots of oil drilling rigs. And, even though the NPS notes that the largest animals in Arches are the mule deer and the occasional transient golden eagle, you'll feel a lot safer knowing that the Senate wants you to carry a loaded gun in this national park.
If you enter the park from I-70, you'll first come to Park Avenue:
and a formation that reminded me of Nefertiti wearing her crown: 
then a section that includes the Parade of Elephants ["look, Mom! that one's Rush!"], North Window, Turret Arch, Cove Arch, and too many others to list, all an easy 10 minute stroll from your car: 
but if you can hike about 4 miles round trip (yes! you can!), or even 8 miles with side trips (yes! you can too!), you can explore the Devils Garden, with the 300 foot long Landscape Arch among many highlights (this NPS photo does not adequately convey its size):
Arches is a tourist-accessible, people-friendly park, a short detour off I-70, with most of its sights fairly close to the park road. If you want to hike for miles without another soul, go to nearby Canyonlands. The adjacent town of Moab makes a great base for those who don't camp; it's not a typically West Yellowstone-style tacky tourist town, but instead a cultural and liberal oasis, home of mountain biking, rafting the Colorado River, canyoneering, and outdoorsy fun. Moab is the only place in Utah where "green salad" means arugula instead of lime green Jello. On a personal note, a Moab diner serves the largest double scoop ice cream sundae I've ever seen in my life, perfect for a kid who's just finished an Outward Bound rafting trip.
I hope that after you've read this diary, you'll understand a little bit of why Tim DeChristopher, Edward Abbey, and others have fought so hard for this magnificent land. I hope that you'll visit this park, get out of your car, and hike its sights. I also hope to inspire others to take some action to save Arches' environs, not just from the BLM and Tom Coburn today, but from all the other hare-brained schemes and naked power grabs that will, inevitably, arise. Please post your own pix, express your thoughts on the guns-in-national-parks rule, or just discuss anything related to outdoor adventuring. Hike on!