Utah: The Best Snow and The Best Dark Sky

Published by Professor Les August 24th, 2007 in Tourism. Tags: International Dark Sky Association, International Dark Sky Park, Natural Bridges, Utah.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Utah’s special mention in David Owen’s excellent piece in the August 20 issue of The New Yorker concerning light pollution and the efforts of the International Dark-Sky Association to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of the nighttime sky. Owen described the spectacular nighttime view at Utah’s Natural Bridges National Monument, which recently was selected as the first International Dark Sky Park. He wrote: “The park is so remote that there is little artificial noise, especially at night, and the silence deepened the darkness. Thinking about the incomprehensible distances above us made me remember nights forty years before, when I was twelve years old and lying on my back in a mountain meadow at summer camp in Colorado, watching for shooting stars in what was probably the darkest sky I’ve ever seen, or will ever see.”

The organization’s press release announcing this first-ever designation also contained some wonderful gems: “During the summer, the park provides astronomy ranger programs under spectacular starry skies. ‘Many park visitors are astounded when they first see the Milky Way under a dark sky. It isn’t just a faint smudge in the sky, but a bright, intricate river of light—almost three dimensional,’ describes [Chief] Ranger [Ralph] Jones of the edge-on view of our own galaxy.”

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