Canyonlands, Utah

 We spent the night in Salina, UT at a commercial RV park to recharge the batteries, get a shower and a swim.  As we continued east on I-70 we passed Ghost Rock (so named because it looked like a ghost sticking out of the fog).  I-70 is gorgeous between Salina and Green River, UT.  We decided to camp near Moab, UT and visit Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.  There are numerous BLM campgrounds along the Colorado River and we parked Snoopy at one, ate lunch and then headed towards Canyonlands.  Bob had never been there and I had last visited in March 1974.


 On the way in we passed these two buttes named the Monitor and the Merrimac after the two boats in the Civil War.











We decided to take two hikes, first out to a crater.  It was hot and dry and windy so we were guzzling water.  The trails out here are marked with rock cairns.










Scientists have no idea what caused this crater.  The two hypotheses are that there was a direct meteor strike which caused the sides to collapse or it was the collapse of a salt dome.  This area was covered by inland seas which evaporated and left thick layers of salt which were eventually covered by rock.  The weight of the rock caused the salt to liquify, like a glacier, and move until it hit faults and caused the over-lying rock to crack.  This permitted water to enter the salt layer, dissolve the salt and caused a collapse.  We hiked to the second viewpoint into the crater, which was filled with these greenish piles of rocks.

 Then we headed to a lookout over the canyonlands.  The Green River joins the Colorado River in Canyonlands and then they continue into Cataract Canyon.  This view is of the Green River and a butte.









The Colorado River has carved this part of the Canyonlands.  The flat area is about 1,000' below the area we were standing on.  We walked out one mile from the road to a viewpoint.









Although this is the desert, it is in bloom at this time of the year.












Below us, in the canyons were these fins and spires.  The Totem Pole, the single tall spire on the left, is the tallest spire in Canyonlands.











Here is a portion of the Green River.













At the end we came upon this balanced rock.  They are created when there is a harder rock on top of a softer layer that erodes faster.











In the distance are the La Sal Mountains.  If you look hard in this picture you will see the Colorado River in two places (slightly green/gray).  We were both really awed by Canyonlands.  We visited the Island in the Sky portion of the park (a mesa between the two rivers).  There are two other areas of the park which remain to be explored.