Bryce Canyon NP

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As the park ranger, who gave speech about the geology of the “Bryce Canyon National Park” correctly remembered, this place is not about a canyon. The its more like a ridge, which erodes – more in the east than in the west. The water sources here at around 9000 feet / 2700 meters, is mostly rainfall. What makes this place so special compared to the neighboring mountains, which partially are built from the same sediments, but don’t show the same type of erosion, is that Read More +

Moosy Cave

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Close to the “Bryce Canyon National Park”, and therefore build from similar stone and by similar processes, the “Moosy Cave” provides a great view for a short rest. I actually ended up there for lunchtime. The place, which gives this short hike its name, the “Moosy Cave”, really is just that a moosy cave. Ground water eroded that cave and at the same time provides the necessary environment for moose to grow in that desert like environment. The cave is so secluded, that ice might Read More +

Nautical Miles

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Today, I planned to do a bit of a full day hiking. At the visitor center, I got the hiking map and asked for distances. Of course, I did plan my day with a bit of generous tolerances in that respect. A good decision as I found out by the end of the day, when my GPS showed me the real distance. It kind of matched the information from the visitor center – in nautical miles though. The hike itself was quite spectacular. First the Read More +

Mountains in Full Color

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I did not expect too much from the “Capitol Reef National Park”, while it was mentioned in the flyer, that the colors are beautiful, I kind of thought I have seen many nice places in the past days, this cannot top it. It kind of did. However my first encounter, when I was inside the national park, was with Dave and his wife. Two hikers where standing on the side of the street and hoped for a ride. As they looked quite normal and quite Read More +

Goblin Valley State Park

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What a strange place. When I was at Vernal UT, more precisely at the Tourist Information at Jenson UT, I got hold of a flyer, which advertised Goblin Valley State Park – in very small print actually. Luckily, that particular park was on my route today from Green River to Torrey. These very special geological formations, really look like from another world. As the state park seems to be relatively rarely visited – or the visitors behave – one can wander between the formations and Read More +

First Floor

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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

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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 +

Catching Horus

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In order to use the morning sunlight, I quickly returned to Arches National Park before heading for the Canyonlands National Park. The feature officially labeled as the “Penguins” right at the entry of the park, kind of reminded me to some stone status I saw on another continent. Horus, the falcon headed egyptian god, is what came into my mind, when I noticed that formation. Maybe I was in Egypt to many times. Anyway, I will go there again, soon actually. In a way I Read More +

Plenty of Arches

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Today was fully dedicated to the arches and other formations as the “Arches National Park”. While there are explanations about layers of mud, dunes and salt seas being deposited at various intervals and then eroded again over a period of millions of years – we are talking about around 100 million years even, it is still hard to imagine that this all could result in such a spectacular landscape. But questions remain. For example at the arches or other locations where material obviously broke, where Read More +

Delicate Arch at Sunset

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After a long drive to Moab and finding a hotel, I finally managed to get into the Arches National Park. It was already quite late and sunset was immanent. So I decided to only briefly enjoy the extreme bizarre, but very beautiful landscape and mountains and head more or less directly to the “Delicate Arch”, probably the most famous arch in that park as its also imprinted on the number plate for cars registered in Utah. Looking at the description of the hiking path, I Read More +