Sun, Oct 2, 2016

Canyonlands is a large national park with over 500 sq miles.  There are several districts including yesterday’s Island in the Sky that is a 2,000 ft mesa.  Today we visited The Needles, down in the desert.

On the drive in, we passed many mesas all of which showed significant degradation.  In the winter, rain fills the cracks, freezes and chips away at the sandstone. Check out the debris.

The Needles are in a section where the movement of the earth’s surface fractured the sandstone vertically.  Subsequent erosion created the sandstone spires.  Too bad I didn’t have time to hike in for some close up views.  Google it for some good ones.