Fin Formations

Arches begins with fins — long, narrow walls of sandstone standing in parallel rows, cracked apart by the same forces that later hollow some of them into arches. Stand them on a ridge and they look like a row of spires.

Photographed June 2003. A line of fins and pinnacles rises along the skyline, the central spire tallest and sharpest, backlit with a glowing rim. Dark grassland sweeps up to their base — a stone cathedral made of the earliest stage of every arch.