USA 2019 Photo Tour (XVI) – Red Canyon, Capitol…

Sunrise catches us on a view point along route “12” considered by many one of the most scenic routes in USA. We take a detour down along Burr Trail Road into one of lesser canyons – and at the same time my favourite place away from the crowds.
Wschód Słońca wita nas na “dwunastce” uważanej, chyba słusznie za jedną z najbardziej malowniczych dróg w USA. Odbijamy do mojego ulubionego kanionu – mało znanego, z nieco byle jaką drogą ale za to pięknymi widokami.

Next up is Capitol Reef National Park – approximately 100 km long along Waterpocket Fold and just under 10 km wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve almost 1000 km2 of desert landscape. Region was designated a national monument in 1937, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the area’s colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths. The majority of the nearly 160 km long up-thrust formation called the Waterpocket Fold – a rocky spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell—is preserved within the park. Capitol Reef is an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold. The park was named for its whitish Navajo Sandstone cliffs with dome formations—similar to the white domes often placed on capitol buildings—that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold.

Goblin Valley State Park is a state park of Utah within San Rafael Desert on the southeastern edge of the San Rafael Swell, north of the Henry Mountains. The park features hundresrs of hoodoos, referred to locally as goblins, which are formations of mushroom-shaped rock couple meters tall pinnacles. The distinct shapes of these rocks result from an erosion-resistant layer of rock atop relatively softer sandstone. Goblin Valley State Park and Bryce Canyon National Park ,contain some of the largest occurrences of hoodoos in the world. The unusual stone shapes in Goblin Valley result from the weathering of Entrada sandstone. The Entrada consists of debris eroded from former highlands and redeposited on a former tidal flat of alternating layers of sandstone, siltstone, and shale. The Entrada sandstone from which the hoodoos developed was deposited in the Jurassic period around 170 million years ago.

Natural Bridges National Monument lies at the junction of White Canyon and Armstrong Canyon, within the Colorado River drainage. It features Sipapu Bridge – the 13th largest natural bridge in the world, carved from the white Permian sandstone of the Cedar Mesa Formation that gives White Canyon its name, as well 2 other bridges: Kachina and Owachomo, which are all Hopi names. A natural bridge is formed through erosion by water flowing in the stream bed of the canyon. During periods of flash floods, particularly, the stream undercuts the walls of rock that separate the meanders (or “goosenecks”) of the stream, until the rock wall within the meander is undercut and the meander is cut off; the new stream bed then flows underneath the bridge. There are also numerous Anasazi sites wihin the park, including beautiful Horsecollar Ruin.