I have been on the
road in southern Utah for the last week – here are a few of my curiosities from
places packed with infinite wonder.
First up is a
geological formation known as the wave
in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.
The formation is Jurassic Navajo Sandstone (think dinosaurs) that is ~190
million years old. The geologic time scale has always been tricky for me to
wrap my head around because of the vast amounts of time involved. Shifting from
decades to millions of years is just not something my brain does easily. I
welcome the humility and challenge of shifting perspectives when surrounded by
such an awe-inspiring landscape.
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| The Wave - Vermilion Cliffs National Monument |
Next, a burr. I
couldn’t resist a throwback to the last blog post.
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| Burr |
The wave is one
among many things to see in the area so we spent a few days hiking around. We
went off trail on the first day and ran into this rock formation. I think it
looks like a dinosaur. Or a spaceship.
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| Crazy rock |
We spent one day
hiking through Buckskin Gulch,
an extensive slot canyon not far from the
wave. It is definitely a different feeling to be in the slot canyon with
views of massive amounts of rock extending many meters into the sky. The
curiosities in the canyon were also much different. I enjoyed documenting the
diversity of items in the holes of the rock walls. During the summer monsoon
season the canyon is subject to flash floods, and items flowing with the water
can get caught in the holes, even holes that are more than 6 meters off the
ground. There were many times when I thought, hmmm, how did that get there? The
only explanation is water, and lots of it.
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| Items in holes of canyon wall |
Water, on the
other hand, did not plant the evidence of predator – prey interactions we
found. We speculated that one predator was an owl, based on the “owl pellet” we
found next to the pile of fur. You can think of this series of images as before
and after; or after, later, and even later (after I picked through the pellet
to see what the owl had been eating).
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| Evidence of predator - prey interactions: After |
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| Evidence of predator - prey interactions: Later, and even later |
There was also a
rabbit leg, and spine. A fellow canyon adventurer said she saw a crow flying
over the canyon with something in its mouth. An hour later we found the leg,
and spine. We hypothesized the crow scavenged these morsels, ate what it could,
and dropped them to the canyon floor as it flew over. I am not including a
picture of the rabbit leg, and spine.
Last, the
petroglyphs. Talk about wonder and curiosity - daydreaming about the people,
events, and cultures surrounding their origination definitely inspires a
shifting perspective. It is such a small window into a previous time. One so
different from now. In my quest to find the origin of the petroglyphs I
discovered that because multiple Native American tribes inhabited this region,
it is difficult to determine what groups they were drawn by, and in some cases
it could be more than one.
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| Petroglyphs |
PS I also wanted
to mention the crazy confluence of some admirably curious people we met in the
Wire Pass trail head parking lot. There was the man from San Diego taking two
months off to drive around the western United States while in between jobs. His outfit included a tent on top of his FJ Cruiser.
A French family touring the Americas for two years, from Canada to Patagonia,
in the most tricked out custom automobile/truck/tank I have ever seen. And
Heike, a tough-ass German woman that has been biking around the world since May of 2012.
More information:
The wave (advanced),
The wave (beginner),
Buckskin Gulch,
Petroglyphs in southern Utah
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