First Floor

The way to the concurrence of the colorado river and the green river follows the base of the top layers of rocks. The “First Floor” is quite green and there are even some farmers taking advantage of the large area. In contrast the “Second Floor”, the top of the surrounding mountains, is quite arid and only plans and animals adapted to a desert like environment can survive. Here approximately 100 meter below the world looks quite different though.

Three Levels of Life

In “Canyonlands National Park” the main attraction are of the canyons. But the main actor in that arid desert actually was and still is water, which has been building all those structures. The entire landscape is more or less divided into three layers as erosion cut away meterial, but was stopped by some intermediate harder layer build from wind blown sand (in desert like environments). If the ranger, who gave a presentation about the geology remembers his lectures correctly rivers, such as the colorado or Read More +

Uncatchable Canyons

Hard to catch with a camera are the impressive canyons at the “Dinosaur National Monument”, which by the way for the greater part is NOT a place to see the remains of dinosaurs. Those can be observed in a corner of it at the nearby “Dinosaur Quarry”. Those canyons where formed by the two rivers “Green River” and “Yampa River”. Those rivers did carved deep canyons (over 700 meters from top to bottom) into the various layers of the mountains.

Little Grand Canyon

A little bit outside the “Canyon Village” – well what other name could that place possibly have? – a fantastic canyon has been cut into the ground by the Yellowstone River. In a two stage waterfall, the river flows downstream. On its path, it cut a massive canyon into the volcanic underground, building step cliffs. Its one of these places, where you consider to NOT using your camera, as the resulting pictures would only be too disappointing. I tried anyway, but probably on those, who Read More +