![]() On the ground below you’ll notice a white rim of sandstone, and below that runs the Colorado River. In the distance you can see the La Sal Mountains which unlike the desert here are covered in pines and a lot more vegetation. We’re lucky the crowd wasn’t bad when we got there! You may have to wait your turn to get a good clear picture of it(without a lot of people taking selfies in the way), but it’s worth it. You don’t want to step on and kill the little guys accidentally □Īfter a quarter of a mile on the meandering path you’ll have reached your destination! Mesa Arch is really beautiful in that it frames the landscape so nicely. Crazy right? So just think of the fairy shrimp when you’re out there. Then they hatch and come alive for a short time. Their eggs remain like a seed, intact and still alive, until the rains come and fill up small pools of water found throughout the desert. It’s pretty cool too as those microorganisms really only come to life when it rains, otherwise they stay dormant…including something I never thought would be found in a desert-Shrimp! Fairy Shrimp to be exact. So the ecosystem is really dependent on it! Biological Soil Crust right beside the trail. They do a lot for the environment such as preventing erosion and loose sand from flying around, holding in moisture when it rains and also giving nitrogen to the plant life. That’s because it’s covered in a Biological Soil Crust, that’s full of living micro organisms(lichen, moss, cyanobacteria/blue green algae, etc). If you’ve stopped at the visitor’s center and/or read any of the signage around, you’ll know that they don’t want you going off the trail and stepping on the soil. There’s no getting lost on it, it’s super easy to follow! There are wide man made stairs, or just rocky trails surrounded by Pinyon Pines and Utah Juniper trees. The trail is clearly defined, and covered in red sandy dirt or rocks. The weather is great at that time of year-not too hot or cold. The parking lot was pretty full when we got there–so keep that in mind if you’re visiting at busier times of the year.
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