OT: Arch collapse

[ckcarr]

You probably already read this. Just goes to show how fragile everything is.

And I was going to hike up and fotograph this one today, just for you...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26123410/?GT1=43001

Oops,

I had about two pictures of it...

[R111S]

Guess thay got the moneys worth outa that one...thanks for sharing Craig.

[Steve Carlton]

That sucks!

[Bob Hancock]

And once again we learn that neither nature nor geology are stagnant. I'm glad it works out this way....kinda.
Let's be thankful that ck got it before the inevitable.

[markjenn]

I'm glad no one was around when it happened.... both because no one got hurt and also because it means that places like this aren't overrun with people all the time.

- Mark

[signit98]

...the nerve, didn't that arch know we were coming out there?

[ckcarr]

Originally Posted by signit98

...the nerve, didn't that arch know we were coming out there?

It probably did, that's why it went to pieces...

Seriously,

I find it funny now on other sites that people are clucking like hens about how unsafe it can be walking under an arch.

There are 1,000 - 1,500 foot sheer cliffs here. With no fences. There are tempertures that get up to 115 f. on a hot summer day. People ARE hurt and killed throughout the year for many different reasons in the parks. Falls, heat stroke & dehydration, getting lost, getting struck by lightning. Now I see that the trail is closed indefinitely until some bureaucrat say's it's OK... The chances of having an arch fall on you is so obscure it's ridiculous. If it does, it's like those people driving down I-70 and having a boulder come through the top of their car. It might happen, but the odds are very, very slim.

Do you know that long ago in Moab there was a man that lived in a shack by where the Colorado river bridge is today. One day they went out to find him and a gigantic boulder had sheered off a cliff and landed right on top of the shack.

Have you ever looked straight up from the climbing route called "30 seconds over Potash" on the Potash road? There is a huge boulder wedged in the cracks about 800 feet above the route, just waiting to fall... That's why it's called 30 seconds, might be 30 seconds, or 30,000 years.

I like it this way, unlike Colorado where it's fenced, or blocked off...

[Steve Carlton]

Seems like a pretty rare event and it's closed for now because rock is still falling.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/11/MN21128J4B.DTL&hw=formation&sn=002&sc=827

"One of the largest and most photographed arches in Arches National Park has collapsed.

Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation, said Wall Arch collapsed sometime late Monday or early Tuesday. For years, the arch had been a favorite stopping point for photographers on the Devils Garden Trail.

Henderson said the arch was claimed by forces that will eventually destroy others in the park: gravity and erosion. "They all let go after a while," he said Friday.

This is the first collapse of a major arch in the park since part of nearby Landscape Arch fell in 1991.

Like others in the park, Wall Arch was formed by entrada sandstone that was whittled down over time into its distinctive and photogenic formation. The arch, first reported and named in 1948, was more than 33 feet tall and 71 feet across. It ranked 12th in size among the park's estimated 2,000 arches.

Rock has continued to fall from the remaining arms of the arch, forcing the closure of part of the trail.

Officials from the National Park Service and the Utah Geological Survey visited the site last week, noting stress fractures in the remaining formation."

[BMWSaint]

I was profoundly moved when our own New England landmark, the Old Man in the Mountains, collapsed a few years back. If you traveled South in NH on I-93 and the day was clear, you couldn't miss it. As with the Arch, no one was around to it see fall.

In truth, it was no longer 'natural' as it had been held in place with cement, rods and guy wires for decades or it would have collapsed long before. And that's the tough call for a National Parks Department - preserve a legacy or let nature take its course.

[jduke]

I wonder if that'll make the quarters with the Old Man of the Mountain on them collectible???

[PFFOG]

Originally Posted by jduke

I wonder if that'll make the quarters with the Old Man of the Mountain on them collectible???

Not sure about the quarter, but the NH route # signs and license plates should be in a hundred years or so.