Together Time

Friday before Mother's Day Lorie and I went for a ride in the swell. We really enjoy doing this but we don't get much of a chance. I told her to get a lunch and we would go see some part of the swell that we haven't seen yet. As it turned out we really got a late start and got to the trail head about 1:15 pm. The San Rafael Swell is a geologic wonder land full of land forms and wonderful sites. Most of you won't care but a small geologic description has to be told as it is really a trip through time.

We start off in the Carmel Formation which is mid Jurassic in age (approximately 161-175 million years ago). It is a sequence of marine strata formed by an inland sea. It covered large sand dunes of the Navajo Sandstone as seen in the first picture Lorie took. This is a large sand dune that formed 190 million years ago. Dune structures can still be seen in the rock forming the canyon walls and in out crops along the trail. From these structures the ancient wind direction is from the northwest to the southeast. This area that extends from southern Wyoming into Utah and terminates in north central Arizona had a climate similar to that of the Sahara in northern Africa. This formation as it weathers forms spectacular land forms; wind erosion of this sandstone forms arches.

















Lorie got a picture of an newly forming arch that we saw as we road the Eva Connover trail.

This picture shows mass wasting and this formation makes for a fine picture.

This is a very cool cottonwood tree. I can picture a person hanging for horse theft or Butch Cassidy galloping past on the way to one of his many hideouts. It was a fun afternoon even though we did get separated and Lorie thought I was dead somewhere along the trail.