The Turret Arch of Utah's Arches National Park is part of the mass on the far left, although here you cannot see the arch itself. It is just lost in the "folds." Here it looks more like a muscled finger of an evangelist demonstrating the way to salvation. If memory serves there are about 2000 arches in this park, and the Turret, from the right perspective, is not so thick as it seems here, but is rather a delicate chain of what seem to be hand-molded shapes joined in two parts by an arch. It might be a studio study in red clay by Henry Moore. The Turret is close to the Windows, two arches that are quite huge, and a favorite snapshot for visitors who take the Windows Trail is to show Turret Arch framed by one of the Windows. The Turret is about 8 miles north of Moab Utah, and one would do well to camp the better part of a year in that Utah town and the wonderfully charmed land about it. Moab is but a dozen miles from the Canyon Lands, eighty miles to Capitol Reef, one hundred and fifty to Bryce Natonal Park - to the west - and a similar distance to Shiprock in New Mexico. Shiprock marks the southeast corner of this grand collection of canyons and monoliths. Just south of the Utah-Arizona line is Monument Valley. Do not miss it, and do not fall into it. Moab is a mere twenty miles from the center of the La Sal Mountains (to the southeast), a little range of 12,000 foot-plus peaks that are especially uncanny rising suddenly above the Colorado Plateau in the winter when capped with snow. Mt.Peale at 12,720 is the highest. The elevation of Moab is a few feet above 4000 so the mountains make a great show. The Colorado River, which is less than two miles from the center of town, is a few feet under 4000, and drops 2000 feet from Moab into the Grand Canyon, while the land to either side of the river generally rises 2000 feet or more higher than Moab. So can go down hill into the canyon if you ride the river or gain altitude as you trek west young man. (Click Twice to Enlarge)
