Utah – A Darker View

Natural Bridges

Still working on scanning the slide collection, I will probably be at it for years. Worth it though, so many memories. Here are a few images from a visit to Natural Bridges National Monument in 1993…

Sipapu Bridge at Natural Bridges National Monument

Skyrocket or scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata)

Prickly Pear Bloom — Pricly pear cacti bloom at Natural Bridges National Monument

Horsecollar Ruins, an Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) site in Armstrong Canyon, Natural Bridges National Monument

Deb and Joy Cooper explore Horsecollar Ruins at Natural Bridges National Monnument

Handprint Petroglyph — An Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) petroglyph in Armstrong Canyon, Natural Bridges National Monument

Claret Cup Cacti (Echinocereus triglochidiatus) in bloom

Petroglyph — An Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) petroglyph in Armstrong Canyon, Natural Bridges National Monument

Kachina Bridge at Natural Bridges National Monument

Travel Utah in 1991

Between semesters at college I loved to hit the road. The usual destination was the great parks along the Utah and Arizona borders including Zion…

The Sentinel — The sandstone pinnacles of Zion National Park

Slickrock — A slickrock hillside in the back country of Zion National Park

Footprints in the Sand — Footprints down the face of a dune at Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

Death in the Sand — A vertebra lies in the sands of Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

A look at a map of Southern Utah will show that the state is littered with natural bridges and arches. There are hundreds, each different, many picturesque, and dozens more so small they are not shown on the maps. What makes Grosvenor Arch different? maybe the effort of getting there, and the truly beautiful landscape on the way.

The road to the arch is a short-cut from Page, Arizona to Bryce Canyon NP in Utah. The choice is 150 miles around via Kanab, or 50 miles through the wilderness, 40 miles of which is on dirt road. But what a road, through the heart of wild sandstone country, passing Grosvenor Arch, Kodachrome Basin State Park and thousands of acres of countryside that would be a state park anywhere else in the country, except that here in Southern Utah this is considered ordinary.

The arch itself is a tall structure of sandstone arching over 60 feet of open air. In the photos you can see that is actually a double arch with a small secondary opening to the left of the main arch. Unlike the graceful arches of Arches National Park or the Navajo Reservation this arch is blocky and hardly smooth.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

Many travel the wilds of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah marveling at the cliffs of red sandstone. Towers, needles and arches of red Navajo Sandstone are the hallmark of the region. These are features carved by millennia of erosion by wind and water. But where does all the sandstone that has been eroded away go? Not all of it has been carried away by the Colorado River to the sea. In southern Utah there is a place where the wind has piled the sand into dunes hundreds of feet high. This place is called Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.

About twenty road miles outside of Kanab, Utah there is a broad valley filled with a field of dunes. A place large enough one can find solitude with the wind and the sand. Where you could get lost among the dunes. Walking is difficult in the piles of loose sand, shifting and sliding beneath your feet. It seems to take an enormous effort to climb the larger dunes. But the view is impressive, the effort worthwhile.

At first the dunes seem devoid of animal life, with few plants struggling to keep hold in the shifting sand. But a closer look revealed traces of more than is first apparent. Tracks criss-cross the dune slopes. Traces of lizards, beetles and snakes that scavenge a life out of the sand. Here or there is a larger reminder, maybe the tracks of a rabbit or coyote showing where the game of life was played for another round. And there in the sand a trace of death as well, in a small vertebra, a reminder that life is easily ended in this sea of sand.