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ARCHES NATIONAL MONUMENT
NATURAL arches, caves, castlelike piles, window openings, and bridges, are among the rock creations preserved in the Arches National Monument, in southeastern Utah.
Utah is noted for its erosional features. Most of them, however, are carved by running water. In the Arches area the fantastic and bizarre rock effects were produced by the hot desert winds, aided by the occasional rains that occur even in this nearly arid country.
HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT
THIS national monument in Utah and Colorado contains four groups of remarkable prehistoric towers, pueblos, and cliff dwellings. In the largest group there are eleven different buildings. The largest of these, Hovenweep Castle, has walls that measure sixty-six feet long and twenty feet high. Besides towers and great rooms, this building has two circular kivas on the east end identical in construction with those found in the ruins of Mesa Verde National Park.
CANYON DE CHELLY NATIONAL MONUMENT
ARCHEOLOGISTS consider the ruined cliff dwellings in Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona among the most important of all the ruins so far discovered in the Southwest. Cliff dwellings located in protected caves and crevasses high above the base of the red sandstone cliffs contain records of cultural progress covering a longer period than found in any of the other ruins so far discovered in that section.
Canyon de Chelly also contains much of scenic interest. A box canyon probably 25 miles in length, it is joined by several lateral canyons, and the walls of red sandstone, some perpendicular or even overhanging, rise 700 to 1,000 feet from the stream bed. The monument lies within the Navajo Indian Reservation and was established in 1931.
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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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