Arches National Park Trivia
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49 free Arches National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Arches National Park trivia quiz covers the park outside Moab, Utah that holds the densest collection of natural stone arches on Earth. It ranges across the famous formations (Delicate Arch, Landscape Arch, Double Arch, Balanced Rock, the Fiery Furnace and Devils Garden), the strange geology of the salt bed and the Entrada Sandstone that made them, and the wildlife and living soil crust that survive in the high desert. There is plenty of history too: the Hungarian prospector who first pitched the area to a railroad, the presidents who created and enlarged the monument, the Civil War veteran who ranched under the arch, Edward Abbey's two ranger summers that became Desert Solitaire, the arch that collapsed one August night in 2008 and the free-solo climb that forced a rule change. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a road-trip game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy this one, try our Yellowstone and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Arches National Park sits just north of which small Utah town?
Moab
Moab is the gateway town; the park entrance is about five miles north of it on US 191, and Moab also serves Canyonlands and the Slickrock mountain-bike trail.
Q 02Roughly how many natural sandstone arches has the park catalogued?
More than 2,000
More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches stand in the park, and new ones are still forming while old ones fall.
Q 03What lies underground beneath the whole park and is the main reason its arches, fins and spires exist?
A thick salt bed
A thick salt bed, the Paradox Formation, underlies the park; deposited when an inland sea dried up about 300 million years ago, it later flowed and buckled the overlying rock into the fins that became arches.
Q 04Most of the park's arches are carved from which rock formation?
Entrada Sandstone
The salmon-coloured Entrada sits in layer-cake fashion on the buff-coloured Navajo; both are Jurassic desert deposits.
Q 05Hoover protected Arches as a national monument in 1929 using powers from which 1906 law?
The Antiquities Act
Herbert Hoover used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to proclaim Arches National Monument on 12 April 1929, protecting two small, disconnected sections of rock formations; Congress made it a national park 42 years later.
Q 06In which year was Arches redesignated a national park?
1971
Arches became a national park in 1971, when Richard Nixon signed the enabling bill on 12 November; it had been a national monument since Hoover's 1929 proclamation.
Q 07About how much rain does the park receive in an average year?
Under 10 inches
Arches receives under 10 inches of precipitation in an average year, roughly nine, and is classed as cold semi-arid; the scarce rain is one reason its soil crust recovers so slowly from footprints.
Q 08What is the highest point in the park?
Elephant Butte
Elephant Butte is the park's highest point at 5,653 feet; the lowest, 4,085 feet, is at the visitor center beside the highway.
Q 09A 2,500-foot displacement along which named break in the rock layers is visible from the visitor center?
The Moab Fault
The Moab Fault runs along Moab Canyon past the visitor center; layers on one side slipped about 2,500 feet relative to the other, putting rocks of very different ages at road level.
Q 10Visitors to Arches are told never to step on the dark, crumbly soil crust; what holds it together?
Cyanobacteria, lichens and fungi
Cyanobacteria, lichens and fungi form a living crust that binds the sand, soaks up rain and gives larger plants a start; one footprint can undo decades of growth.
Q 11Which weak acid in rainwater dissolved the cement binding the sand grains of Arches' fins?
Carbonic acid
Carbonic acid, formed when rainwater absorbs carbon dioxide, dissolved the calcium carbonate cement between sand grains; gravity then dropped the weakened lower layers out of the fins piece by piece.
Q 12Which prospector first drew a railroad's attention to the Arches area in 1923?
Alexander Ringhoffer
Alexander Ringhoffer, a Hungarian-born prospector, took a railroad's passenger traffic manager to see the rock formations in 1923, hoping the line would promote the area as a tourist stop; the railroad then lobbied the Park Service.
Q 13In Arches, what is the prospector's original 'Devils Garden' called today, after surveyors muddled the location?
Q 21Under post-2006 rules, you may not climb any park arch with an opening larger than what?
Three feet
Climbing any arch with an opening greater than three feet is prohibited under the park's compendium, as is climbing Balanced Rock; slacklining and BASE jumping are banned throughout the park.
Q 22Landscape Arch, the park's longest span, measured roughly how wide in 2004?
290 feet
Landscape Arch spanned about 290 feet when measured in 2004, making it the longest natural arch in North America; it is only about six feet thick at its thinnest point.
Q 23What happened at Landscape Arch in September 1991 that led to the trail beneath it being closed?
A 60-foot slab fell from its underside
Klondike Bluffs
Klondike Bluffs is the area Ringhoffer called Devils Garden; surveyors attached the name to the opposite side of Salt Valley, where Landscape Arch stands, and his discovery was left out of the 1929 monument entirely.
Q 14Which president's proclamation enlarged Arches National Monument to include Delicate Arch?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt's proclamation of 25 November 1938 enlarged the monument from about 4,500 to nearly 34,000 acres and brought in Delicate Arch; the 1929 monument had covered only the Windows and Devils Garden.
Q 15Which president substantially enlarged Arches National Monument shortly before it became a national park?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson's proclamation of 20 January 1969, his last day in office, enlarged the monument from about 34,000 to nearly 83,000 acres; Congress trimmed it back in 1971 when creating the park.
Q 16Delicate Arch appears on which of these?
Utah license plates
Utah license plates carry Delicate Arch, as did the postage stamp marking Utah's statehood centennial, and it featured in the torch relay for the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
Q 17How tall is the freestanding span of Delicate Arch?
52 feet
Delicate Arch stands 52 feet tall, with an opening about 46 feet high and 32 feet wide; white-throated swifts nest at its top each summer, and the 3-mile round-trip trail climbs 480 feet to reach it.
Q 18Local cowboys gave Delicate Arch which unflattering nickname?
The Schoolmarm's Bloomers
The Schoolmarm's Bloomers, the Chaps, Pants Crotch and Salt Wash Arch were all used before Frank Beckwith's 1933–34 scientific expedition settled on the current name.
Q 19In the 1950s the Park Service seriously investigated protecting Delicate Arch from erosion by doing what?
Coating it in clear plastic
In the 1950s the Park Service studied coating Delicate Arch in clear plastic to slow erosion; the idea was dropped as impractical and against its principles, and the arch will eventually fall like every other.
Q 20Which climber's free solo of Delicate Arch in May 2006 forced the park to rewrite its climbing rules?
Dean Potter
Dean Potter free-soloed Delicate Arch in May 2006; the old rule only said climbing named arches 'may be' prohibited, which park lawyers judged unenforceable, so the park rewrote its rules to ban arch climbing outright.
The span went from about 11 feet thick to about 6 in seconds; two more large rockfalls followed in 1995.
Q 24Which span in Arches' Devils Garden, the park's 12th largest, collapsed unobserved on the night of 4–5 August 2008?
Wall Arch
Wall Arch's rubble temporarily blocked the Devils Garden Trail; it was the first major collapse since the 1991 rockfall at Landscape Arch.
Q 25Double Arch formed differently from most spans in Arches National Park; how was it eroded?
From above, by water pooling in potholes
It is a pothole arch, carved from above, by water pooling in potholes on top of the fin and cutting down to a cavity below; its larger opening is 104 feet high, the tallest in the park.
Q 26Double Arch and Balanced Rock in Arches National Park appear in the opening scene of which 1989 film?
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade opens with young Indy chased through the formations; the cave shown in the film does not exist.
Q 27Balanced Rock, the largest of its kind in the park, weighs approximately how much?
About 3,600 tons
Balanced Rock's 55-foot boulder weighs about 3,600 tons; its hard Slick Rock sandstone sits on a pedestal of softer Dewey Bridge mudstone that erodes faster, so it will eventually topple.
Q 28Balanced Rock once had a smaller companion that toppled in the winter of 1975–76. What was it called?
Chip Off the Old Block
The same recipe did it in: a hard caprock perched on a softer, faster-eroding base.
Q 29The Fiery Furnace takes its name from what?
Its reddish glow at sunset
The Fiery Furnace is named for the reddish glow its fins take on at sunset, not for heat; the maze of fins and slots hides arches such as Skull, Surprise and Kissing Turtles.
Q 30Why has entry to the Fiery Furnace required a permit or a ranger-led tour since 1994?
To limit damage from heavy visitation
Entry was restricted in 1994 to limit damage from heavy visitation: there are no trails inside, so walkers must keep to sandy washes and bare rock to protect soil crust, potholes and a large stand of Canyonlands biscuitroot.