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Show keep existing services and trails in operation, park officials turned to Reed Blake, a long-time friend of the park, with a particular love for the Kolob section. Blake is a sociologist at Brigham Young University. And that had park officials asking if he could, from the talent available at the university, bring together a "professional survey crew to provide a sound, defensible measurement of the arch," and, not pushing mind you, but could he do it within the next month or two? It would have to be a volunteer crew, they said, no budget for it. Blake reasoned that he could. In Utah, as word of the expedition began to spread, the size of the group began to swell. Thus, when the party started down the trail to the arch, it counted an instructor in surveying, three graduate students in civil engineering, a photographer, two journalists, two officials from the National Park Service, and six others (including Blake) who had an interest in the outdoors. The arch, Blake explains, does not show as well as many other spans because it does not arch against the sky. It is first seen when Crystal Creek branches into three brooks; it is suspended against a cliff 700 feet above and nearly a quarter-mile away on the left brook. "It would be dramatic to say a shout went up when the figures came in, but that is not the way it happened," says Blake. "We came out of the canyon believing the arch was the world's largest. Precisely how large was not determined until we were back at the university." There the many photographs |
