Delicate Arch, Sunset, April 1988

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This photograph brings back memories of times past that will never return. It was captured in April of 1988 on film, which was then the only existing media. I was alone for the entire evening at the 58 foot (16m) tall Delicate Arch. That was fairly common in the 1980s during the "off season", which ran from mid-September through April. It was one of many sublime and solitary evenings I spent watching the drama of sunset on this one of a kind landscape. By the middle 1990s anything close to solitude at Delicate Arch became a thing of the past. To avoid the crowds and the circus atmosphere they create I stopped visiting in 1996. Today a crowd is present every day of the year, numbering in the hundreds during the busiest season. Conversely large winter storms, bitter cold temperatures, and dangerously icy trails occasionally minimize the size of these crowds. I took advantage of that in February of 2022 to obtain my first and probably last digital photograph of Delicate Arch.