This trip we visited the fourth of the five National Parks in the State of Utah. This part of our country is in my mind, a geological wonder. Each National park in this state is so diverse, each one very different from the other and you can not just see one and think you have seen them all.
Canyonlands was another surprise because just across the road is Arches National Park, full of red rock and naturally created arches and Canyonlands is just as the name describes, canyons, mesas and craters.
Canyonlands is the largest national park in Utah and its diversity can stagger your imagination. Only about one third of the park is accessible to the everyday guy in a two wheel drive sedan. The section called Islands in the Sky is the best way to see this park with many spectacular pullouts along the scenic drive. The Islands in the Sky sits atop a 1500 foot mesa (above the 4000+ foot elevation below) with views of mesa's and the canyons which allow you to see what millions of years of water, weather and erosion can do.
There is also a salt crater, referred to as an Upheaval Dome. Interpretive signs indicate geologists do not know what created the crater. One idea, geologist suggest the dome was a result of a salt dome formed by the evaporation of ancient landlocked seas. When under pressure from thousand of feet of overlaying rock, the salt can flow like ice moving at the bottom of a glacier. As a result, over millions of years of salt can flow up through rock layers as a 'salt bubble', rising to the surface and creating the salt dome and deforming the surrounding rocks.
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| Salt Dome - Upheaval Dome |
A second idea is geologists estimate about 60 million years ago, a meteorite with a a diameter of approximately one-third of a mile hit at what is now the Upheaval Dome creating an unstable crater that partially collapsed.
If you are truly adventuresome, have a four wheel drive vehicle, there is a 100 mile road through the park at the bottom of the mesa that offers you a completely different view of the mesa's, craters, canyons and allows you access to where the Green river merges with the Colorado.
Once again, National Parks should not be missed, and if you are over 62, you can purchase a pass for $10 that will give you access to most all National Parks and monuments in our country.