Day 643: Canyonlands National Park, Island in the Sky District, and Dead Horse Point State Park

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Ben

This morning we drove into the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park. Wedged above the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, this area is a mesa at 6000 feet overlooking river-carved canyons thousands of feet below:

We briefly visited the visitor center:

We drove to the Green River Overlook. The overlook is on Kayenta Sandstone, which acts as a capstone over the softer Wingate Sandstone, which forms the cliffs at the overlook. Below, the Chinle Formation acts as a cap over the Moenkopi Formation, which is the lower set of cliffs:

The harder Chinle Formation is the top layer here, with the softer Moenkopi Formation below:

The Green River flows through the canyon dividing the Island in the Sky and Maze districts of the park:

Next we hiked down to False Kiva. Due to the fragile nature of the site, False Kiva is a Class II NPS site, so the site or its trail do not appear on any maps. Rangers will give information on getting there if asked about it. We already knew the location of the trail and site, so we set out:

Amazing views of the Green River basin along the trail:

We met this fellow on the trail:

False Kiva is the small, rightmost shadowed area under the overhang:

The overhang is huge, and we hoped for a seismically quiet day:

Trish can be seen hiking in the lower right:

Hiking under the arch, B is in the foreground. M, in red, can be seen standing at the entrance to False Kiva:

Under the arch:

M’s dramatic pose:

False Kiva:

B looked through the NPS logbook for the site:

The site is thought to be a Native American dwelling, probably 700 to 1000 years old:

On the way back, B captured a nice flower photo:

Next we visited Upheaval Dome, a meteor impact site within the park. The crater is a few miles across, and was created as much as 170 million years ago:

Orange Cliffs Overlook:

Grand View Point Overlook:

Buck Canyon Overlook:

Candlestick Tower Overlook:

The vastness of this area is amazing:

Next we hiked to Mesa Arch, made famous by its photo being one of the default backgrounds for Windows 7:

Leaving Canyonlands National Park, we drove to nearby Dead Horse Point State Park, named for the narrow point where wild horses were corralled for sorting. According to local lore, horses were once left contained at the point, and died of thirst within sight of the Colorado River thousands of feet below. The kids worked on their Junior Ranger workbooks:

From the visitor center, we could see potash evaporation ponds near Moab:

We drove out to Dead Horse Point:

Busy day!

Day 641: Exploring Canyonlands National Park, Needles District

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Ben

Shabbos dispersed camping just outside of Canyonlands National Park was pleasant. Today we drove into the park and visited the Needles District visitor center:

The park is divided into three districts by impassible canyons channeling the Colorado River (right), and the Green River (left). The Maze has no paved roads and takes hours to reach, so we decided not to try to get there. Later this week, we will drive North to Moab and visit the Island in the Sky district:

Leaving the visitor center, we drove to the Elephant Hill trailhead and hiked towards Chesler Park, where the needle formations for which the park is named can be viewed:

There was a narrow canyon to walk through:

The kids spotted ancient hand print pictographs on this rock. B is looking for more:

All along the trail we saw mature cryptobiotic soil. We were careful not to “bust the crust”:

Cactus in bloom:

At last we reached Chesler Park and could look out over the needles in the distance:

There was also a nice arch here:

We went back the way we came back through the narrow canyon:

Returning to the visitor center, the kids handed in their workbooks and received their Junior Ranger badges:

Agave in bloom:

Here we only have tenuous Verizon voice connection with our backup phone, so we decided to drive up to Moab this afternoon. On the way back to the highway, we stopped to visit Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument, where Native Americans have been fashioning pictographs for over 2,000 years:

Continuing north, we stopped in Moab for groceries, diesel, water, and dumping sewer tanks. BLM lands in the Moab area for the most part do not allow dispersed camping due to the amount of use the area receives, so we continued north on highway 191 for 12 miles to a dispersed camping location on Utah state SITLA land. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 636: Goblin Valley State Park

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Ben

It’s a cloudy day here outside of Goblin Valley State Park. We overnighted in this short little canyon:

I climbed to the top of the canyon wall, where I could see Goblin Valley to the south. It’s also the only place around here that the phone seems to work:

B has started creating flower photos:

We drove into Goblin Valley State Park. The park is known for its interesting hoodoos, which are called goblins here:

This area is composed of alternating layers of sandstone and siltstone. The toadstool shape occurs because the softer siltstone of the “stem” erodes more quickly than he harder cap of sandstone:

The siltstone is very soft:

The kids received their junior ranger badges:

Not a bad view from the parking lot:

We unhitched and drove a few miles west to the trailhead for Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon. The canyon starts out normally enough:

Interesting textures:

At the fork in the canyon, we decided to go up Little Wild Horse Canyon first:

Eventually the canyon became water filled, so we had to climb the walls to avoid the water:

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On the way down we spotted a wriggling Horsehair Worm. In its larval stage, it gets eaten by a host animal like a cricket, then burrows out of the host’s stomach into the animal’s organ cavity and grows into a worm several inches long. When ready to emerge from the host, it emits neurotransmitters that convince the host to jump into water (and usually drown) so that the worm can emerge into the water and swim away:

Here a harder layer of sandstone emerges from the canyon wall:

We hiked back down to the fork and hiked up Bell Canyon. We pretty soon ran into deep pools:

M got into trouble here as the walls were almost too wide for him to wedge himself between the walls. He narrowly escaped getting really wet:

Heading out:

We left Goblin Valley State Park, driving north, east, and south back to Hanksville, where we used the grocery store’s WiFi:

We visited the Wolverton Mill in Hanksville. The mill is unique in that the waterwheel drives a gold ore crusher, an arrastra, and a saw for milling wood, all via a complex array of belts:

The arrastra:

Today we overnighted at a gas station on the east side of town. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 635: Capitol Reef National Park, Day 2

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Ben

Another great dispersed camping site, this time just outside of Capitol Reef National Park:

B took a moment to clean her bathroom sink this morning:

We drove north on a BLM road for about 20 miles to reach Cathedral Valley, the northernmost section of Capitol Gorge National Park. The Valley contains the Temple of the Sun (TotS) monolith, as well as the smaller Temple of the Moon (TotM) monolith, seen here to the left of TotS:

Our first stop was Glass Mountain, a selenite plug exposed by the weathering of surrounding softer material:

Selenite is soft and can be peeled into thin sheets:

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TotM in the distance:

We parked next to TotS and walked around it:

The back side of TotS:

Next we drove over to TotM and hiked around it as well:

Leaving TotS behind:

On the way back we passed these painted hills:

This outcropping is called Queen of the Wash:

Back near the main road, the Waterpocket Fold can be seen here coming right into the photo:

We stopped at the RV for lunch, then drove back into the park. We stopped to peek into a preserved Mormon settler’s cabin:

We also saw the one room school, which was in operation until the late 1940s:

At the visitor center, the kids received their Junior Ranger badges:

M captured this photograph near the visitor center:

We visited the Gifford House in the Fruita complex, now operated as a museum and gift shop:

We visited the horses again:

The orchards of Fruita:

On our way out of the park, we stopped at the Hickman Bridge trailhead:

The weather made us nervous, but we kept going:

We found a set of small natural bridges in the creek bed:

The bridge blends in with the stone behind it, but it’s there:

After the hike, we drove back to the RV and hitched up. We drove east to Hanksville, stopping for groceries and WiFi. We then drove north, west, and south to a dispersed camping location just outside Goblin Valley State Park. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 622: Bryce and Slot Canyons

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Ben

It was another chilly morning in the Dixie National Forest:

We went back into Bryce Canyon National Park where the kids submitted their Junior Ranger books and received their badges:

We drove east and descended off the plateau:

We stopped in Cannonville to visit one of the Grand Staircase-Escelante National Monument visitor centers, across the street from this abandoned house:

We got a permit at the visitor center to do dispersed camping in the Monument, and found this nice spot:

We detached the truck from the RV and drove to Willis Creek, where we hiked the narrow canyon:

A waterfall forced us to hike around to get back into the canyon:

Towards the end of the hike, the canyon widened:

Heading back:

Another waterfall:

The hike track is in two parts:

Driving south, we stopped at Bull Valley Gorge, a difficult to traverse and deep slot canyon. We drove across the bridge and parked, then walked back across the bridge and walked along the edge. Looking back, a shiny object is visible in the rubble that makes up the bridge:

See the truck wedged in the bridge? In 1954, a truck with three occupants missed the bridge and fell 60 feet into the canyon. Two occupants fell out of the truck to their deaths over a hundred feet below on the canyon floor. The third occupant died in the truck, and his body wasn’t extracted until months later. Eventually, it was decided that the truck would make a great base for a new bridge. Rock, trees, and stone were pored into the canyon over the truck until the debris pile was flush with the canyon rim, and that was the new bridge: