Colorado - the River

I escaped Grand Junction's morning rush hour - such as it is - and found myself virtually alone on I-70, headed to Utah. After about 45 mi, I discovered a 2 mile positional discrepancy in the map database my GPS uses - and missed my turn-off because of it. Another 10 mi to the next exit - this is a RURAL interstate after all; Utah, you know - and the discrepancy was still there but, being flexible, I took the exit anyway.

I stopped as soon as I crossed to the south side of the interstate to get this picture of the La Sal Mountains, about 28 mi south in the very direction I was headed. I had been eyeing this anomaly as I drove, for about the last 25 mi, but wasn't really sure where it was in relation to my planned route. As it turned out, it's about 17 mi ESE of  Moab and dominates many of the area's vistas - as you'll see later. There are several peaks, the highest of which is 12,721 ft. My viewpoint elevation was about 4400 ft.

Eight or nine miles SE of that first viewpoint my route brought me to the banks of the Colorado River and I followed the river on UT 128 into Moab for lunch.The picture above is typical of the land along the Colorado from here all the way past Hoover Dam, though the flooded areas of Lake Powell and Lake Mead are farther afield and much more varied.

At this point - or, at least, now - the Colorado appears pretty lazy and isn't much like John Wesley Powell described his trip down the river in 1869. I saw four rafts that morning, two groups of two. What was interesting about this drive was that the road followed the river from the very beginning of the canyon. There are some wide spots, but for the most part the canyons just keep getting grander and grander as we went downstream. . .

The wall above was different than most on this drive. It reminds me of many of the walls that constrain Lake Powell. From my visit there in 2008, I remember that the chocolate colored stains on the wall are from manganese.

This one caught my attention because of the massive fracture pattern, the sheer wall, and the highlights of the sun with deep shadows.