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Show THE ZEPHYR DECEMBER 1 990 PAGE 28 desert vistas. Looking Back A Turret Arch, last major formation in the Windows area, is so named because the reef in which it is found terminates in a great spearheaded tower. The arch itself is shaped something like a keyhole (of Brobdingnagian proportions) and is accompanied by a smaller window which had not in 1940 been deemed sufficiently remarkable to merit a name. A favorite trick of photographers is to walk through the South Window and snap Turret Arch in its frame. It is well to remember, when photographing arches and other eroded formations in the Monument, that the whole country is of tremendous proportions and that without some index to actual size pictures are apt to be disappointing. The most common method, of course, is to include human figures in the picture. UTAH GUIDE THE STATE TO Compiled by Workers of the Writers' Program h' the ork W of Projects Administration C COURTHOUSE TOWERS for the State of Utah section is in a reef that stands out 300 to 400 feet above the desert; the Courthouse Towers section lies in a system of canyons cut as deep below the desert. It is best reached by foot trail from US 160, 4.5 m. north of Moab, which transcends the north wall of Moab Valley and descends into PARK AVENUE, the main scenic route through the section. The trail offers no difficult climbs, though it is impossible to enter the canyon of Park Avenue except at its head. The main scenic route leads along a continuous slab of Entrada sandstone from 150 to 300 feet high, perfectly vertical and intricately eroded. Only the more spectacular forms had been named in 1940. The Windows 1941 Sausage Rock, the first of the named forms, is a balanced and sym- metrical pinnacle some 40 feet high. Northward from it the trail works d piles to Unjoined Rock, an undercut block of through stone 20 feet thick, which overlooks the canyon from its wall 300 feet above, and to the Three Gossips, who take form at the top of a fin 400 feet high and no more than 50 feet thick at the base. Here also is The Organ, a at the top, and 700 feet high. fin, knife-thi- n The continuous fin that walls in Park Avenue terminates at Sheep Rock, and permits a view of the La Sal Mountains southeastward and the Windows section to the north. The trail continues about half a mile into Courthouse Wash, passing two unnamed arches, and bringing up against the sheer north wall of the wash. Here are visible the battlemented and towered piles from which the section takes its name. wind-carve- V-shap- Arches National Monument (continued) ed KLONDIKE BLUFFS THE WINDOWS The Klondike The Windows section is an eroded reef of ruddy Entrada sandstone, 9 miles east of U 160 on State 93. From the highway its battlemented contour, half mosque, half feudal castle, dominates the skyline, and patches of blue show clearly through two of its arches. State 93, after the manner of desert roads, threads somewhat uncertainly through hillocks, washes, and around outcroppings of sandstone bedrock. The road, however, offers no difficulties, aside from slow driving over rough spots and staying on the road in sandy stretches, and affords besides a chance to observe that the desert is much maligned, that it is full of green things and has even an occasional patch of grass. Five miles from the highway is Willow Springs cabin, a water tank, and a corral used by cattlemen whose herds range the public domain adjacent to the Monument. At 8 m. from the junction with US 160 is a 200-fopinnacle of hard stone (200 yds. L) that has survived erosion, and atop block of even harder stone, its edges it is Balanced Rock, a base. A walk of 200-od- d its yards (L) extending precariously past from this point (best conducted by guide) leads to a vantage point from which Delicate Arch and Devils Garden can be seen to the north. At 8.5 m. are Adam and Eve (L), cleanly sculptured and complete even to the apple, with Adam holding the malignant fruit to take the first bite. Near by, on a 250-fopinnacle, Eagle Rock surveys the business with aquiline unconcern. hike through the COVE The road ends at 9 m., and a d whose an walls return echoes OF CAVES, amphitheater that double back on themselves, leads to Double Arch, sometimes known as the jughandles. Here, two massive arcs of streaked salmon-pin- k stone swing outward and downward from the common abutment of Windows Reef. The larger extends 165 feet from reef to base, and towers 156 feet above the debris below. The smaller, though not by any means dwarfed by its companion, has as yet been considered too insignificant (by a people who take the spectacular calmly) to merit It probably is no more than high enough to shelter a measurement. three or four story building (much of the estimating of dimensions in this region is done by simple triangulation, using the thumb or forefinger for transit and a guess for a base line). From Double Arch, the foot trail leads by a sculptured butte, where Satan uncovers ominous tushes in Mephistophelean approval of the doings of Adam and Eve, and a Parade of Elephants marches in echelon, trunk to rump. The butte is 300 feet high, and the Entrada formation and its Carmel base are plainly discernible. A short distance beyond is South Window, 65 feet high and 130 feet long, and hard by, its companion, North Window, of like size. Both are less smoothly sculptured than Double Arch, but both are imposing in size and regularity, and frame imposing Bluffs section was in 1940 the least known portion of the Monument. Cowboys report that it is impossible to get a horse more than fifty feet into the area anywhere, but a good foot trail leads sandto two points of interest. The Bluffs are a jungle of salmon-hue- d stone, not very large in area, but endless in variation. One sculptured butte discloses Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, at the moment of his discovery of the Golden Plates, from which he translated the Book of Mormon. Into another butte the wind has carved beauti- fully symmetrical Tower Arch. Trails have been proposed for the Bluffs which will make them more accessible. ot 50-fo- ot ot ten-minu- te wind-pocke- Batattd 'Rock an4 trifanu Hit old -- oacJ. DEVILS GARDEN Devils Garden, which contains sixty-foof the Monuments eighty-on- e known arches, is the largest and most complex section of the Monument. It extends along a continuous sandstone ridge, eroded into jungles of upright fins, huge amphitheaters with sinuous intercond monoliths. Small parks with necting passageways, and Sweetwater springs are secreted here and there, surrounded by vertical slabs of sandstone, and sometimes joined to natural "slickrock corrals that are used by cattlemen at branding time. It is distinctly a foot ur wind-gnarle- |