Photo of the day: Utah’s otherworldly arches

Arches National Park
The double arch, a formation in Arches National Park. (Luca Galuzzi via Wikimedia Commons)

Arches National Park in southern Utah’s canyon country is home to 2,000 natural arches — the largest such concentration in the world. Millions of years of erosion carved the red sandstone arches. Every year more than a million visitors from around the globe enjoy the dramatic colors of the landforms and hike the park’s trails.

Arches is part of a park system that began in 1872 with Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and inspired a worldwide national park movement. The U.S. system is managed today by the National Park Service and includes recreational sites as well as monuments and historic battlefields.