When I saw the headline that a “popular arch” had collapsed in Arches, I feared that Landscape Arch had fallen. Instead, it was Wall Arch, which is located nearby.

Before and after shots of Wall Arch

You can read the Arches NP press release here.

I had my opportunity to see Wall Arch on my first visit to Arches NP, back in 2003, when Justin Powell and I went on a late afternoon hike to Double-O Arch. After Landscape Arch, the trail becomes rugged and difficult and shortly thereafter we would have had the opportunity to admire and photograph Wall Arch. As we kept going, we walked along the narrow backbone of rock fins with at least a 100 foot drop on one side, looking for obscure and nearly hidden arches and marveling at the setting sun, which had started to make the red rock glow in red and orange hues. Maybe we managed to see it from a distance, pointing it out to one another as we hurried on to our destination.

After making it to Double-O Arch we quickly realized that with sunset the trip back to the car would become dangerous as we backtracked along the trail with some of its dangerous drops. It was around the time that we returned to the Wall Arch area that we had to break out the flashlights and head lamps.

You see the huge boulders and rubble at the base of some of the arches and you don’t know whether those were deposited there 1 year or 1 million years ago. It’ll be interesting to go there the next time and realize that this geologic change happened in my lifetime. Wish I could tell my kids that I “remember” this arch, but I’m now curious to dig around in my files for photographic proof that I admired it once upon a time.

The Devils Garden area near Wall Arch

Update: No picture of Wall Arch in my collection. I do vaguely remember being low on film that evening, so I may have been conserving my shots. However, when looking at the park map, I notice that going to the arch requires turning off the main trail onto a short side trail. Considering that we were in a hurry to hoof it out to Double-O Arch, I now doubt that we took this side trip.

How depressing. You take for granted that one of these arches will be around for centuries to come. Wall Arch was apparently a “next time” arch and now I’ll never see it.