slgwv's photos with the keyword: national park

A road following a steep canyon thru the Waterpocket Fold, a monocline that forms the prominent landforms in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. A monocline is a structure in which one side has been downdropped with respect to the other, with the overlying strata folded downward accordingly. Usually monoclines reflect high-angle faults in the subsurface. The prominent light-colored sandstone making the big cliffs and rounded domes is the Navajo Sandstone of Triassic-Jurassic age, a widespread stratigraphic unit in this part of the Colorado Plateau. Looking east. The Burr Trail comes up this canyon in a set of steep switchbacks. It is named for John Atlantic Burr, who built the original trail in the 1880s for cattle(!) drives. The modern trail is graded and in good weather is (more or less) passable to ordinary passenger cars, but it gets washed out enough--particularly in monsoon season, as now!--that high clearance and 4wd are advisable. I crossed a flooded section of road getting to this point. The inset shows another view of the switchbacks.

Another view of the switchbacks. A road following a steep canyon thru the Waterpocket Fold, a monocline that forms the prominent landforms in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. A monocline is a structure in which one side has been downdropped with respect to the other, with the overlying strata folded downward accordingly. Usually they reflect high-angle faults in the subsurface. The prominent light-colored sandstone making the big cliffs and rounded domes is the Navajo Sandstone of Triassic-Jurassic age, a widespread stratigraphic unit in this part of the Colorado Plateau. The Burr Trail comes up this canyon in a set of steep switchbacks. It is named for John Atlantic Burr, who built the original trail in the 1880s for cattle(!) drives. The modern trail is graded and in good weather is (more or less) passable to ordinary passenger cars, but it gets washed out enough--particularly in monsoon season, as now!--that high clearance and 4wd are advisable. I crossed a flooded section of road getting to this point. The inset shows another view of the switchbacks.

Desert grapevines ( Vitis girdiana ) in, well, yes, the desert. These are along Grapevine Canyon (the name was not drawn from a hat!) at the south end of Saline Valley, alongside the road. The area lies within Death Valley National Park, California. Yes, there is a creek along the canyon; hence all the vegetation!

Tapeats Sandstone (Lower Cambrian; skyline) atop the mid-Proterozoic Cardenas Lavas and Dox Sandstone. Near Unkar Rapid, Grand Canyon, Arizona.

And a couple of stressed-looking creosote bushes. Saline Valley is a downdropped fault-bounded valley (a graben) west of Death Valley. It's now also in Death Valley National Park, and gives a flavor of what Death Valley was like before the tourists and the Park Service infrastructure. In 60+ miles of rough dirt road I passed one other vehicle (a ranger), and saw two cars parked here at the dunes.

In the eponymous national park, Colorado. A spectacular gorge cut in hard metamorphic rock, with local granite bodies, by the Gunnison River. Looking upstream (southeasterly), from the Chasm View trail. This is on the considerably less-visited north rim of the park, which is _not_ accessible by a paved road! On consulting the USGS topo (Grizzly Ridge 7.5'), the canyon here is over 1700 ft (518 m) deep.

Telephoto view from the Crystal Mountain ski area, looking west. Little Tahoma Peak is a satellite summit that is an erosional relic of a larger volcanic edifice. It's apparently very dangerous to climb because the rock is so broken up.

Centerpiece of the eponymous national park, California, USA. The southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range; it last erupted in 1914. Looking north from a Forest Service road.