The Arches Reader [Paperback]

Geology is the star attraction in many national parks, but Arches National Park reveals erosional wonders like no other place on earth. There’s something thrilling and slightly unsettling about a massive rock with a hole in its middle or a ribbon of stone flung like a spider’s thread from one rock face to another. And there’s nothing quite like a view of blue sky or snow-capped mountains framed by stone. So many stony holes of so many shapes and sizes abound here that people spend years hunting unrecorded arches, quarreling over measurements and categories, and dreaming up original names.

Part of the National Park Readers series,The Arches Readeris an anthology of writing about Arches National Park and the surrounding area. The selections range from creative nonfiction to short fiction to poetry to amateur versions of scientific reports; they are wide-ranging and have never before been collected in one place; several selections are previously unpublished. Photographs collected here include both historic black-and-white images and beautiful, full-color images of some of Arches’ most striking features.The Arches Readeris an essential companion for anyone who wants to better understand its unique natural and human past.A selection of the best writing about Arches National Park“Poignant, creative. . . . The Arches Readerthoroughly illustrates what place and community mean to the workers and residents around Arches National Park.”—H-Net

“Arches’ story is unique, tied so closely as it is to the fate of its adjacent community. I’m not sure that any other park can tell quite the same story of an explosion in popularity and a community’s attendant ambivalence. And its sometimes despair.”—Jen Jackson Quintano, author of Blow Sand in His Soul: Bates Wilson, the Heart of Canyonlands

“If you want tol"