elaterite, 18 days ago to Utah

A close crop of an earlier post from a couple of weeks ago. Also, since I'm on my home computer, I slightly enhanced it using a parametric mask in Darktable to reveal a bit more detail.

#RockArt #Canyon #Utah #Desert #Photography #Darktable

Mikal, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

One of the ancient petroglyphs I stumbled across today after going up the wrong canyon looking for another, more famous panel. Apparently the Ancestral Puebloans had wingsuits 800 years ago.

I hiked over the ridge, across the valley and up the next ridge and found the original rock art panel I had intended to visit, called the Procession Panel. Then went over the top of that ridge and down the next valley, the one in the earlier post, and back to the truck.

I shot lots of good photos of rock art today, but these will be in a blog post and a gallery that I will link to later.

#CombRidge #SlickRock #ColoradoPlateau #RockArt #Petroglyph #DirtBagger

Mikal, 7 months ago to hiking

Hiked the wrong way to the "Procession Panel" pictographs and found some other cool rock art on the way. Now I'm gonna loop down this other canyon to the north because it looked too cool to ignore. From the top of Comb Ridge, looking east toward Butler Creek and the Abajo mountains in the distance.

#BearsEars #ColoradoPlateau #CanyonCountry #Hiking #DontNeedNoStinkingMap #SlickRock #Dirtbagger

Mikal, 7 months ago to hiking

Took a little hike today down Slickhorn Canyon, a place I've wanted to go for many, many years. Hiked down what known as the first canyon, went back up the second canyon and then cut cross country due North to get back to the truck.

Hiked up to Perfect Kiva, an Ancestral Puebloan ruin that had been occupied for over 1000 years, but abandoned 800 years ago.

The kiva is in perfect shape, hence the name. The original ladder was taken to a museum in the '80s and replaced with the replica you see in the photos. In general, you don't want to enter these places because they are fragile, but this is one of the well known, oft-visited ones where it's OK to do so. Just don't touch the fragile plaster on the walls.

The second photo is the top of the kiva looking out toward SlickHorn Canyon. Note the two poles of the ladder protruding from the access hole.

#CedarMesa #ColoradoPlateau #CanyonCountry #BearEars #Hiking #PublicLands

The view from deep in an enormous alcove high on a canyon wall. Looking down, The canyon walls are reddish brown, charcoal and gray layers of sandstone with small scattered pinion pines and junipers on the ledges. In the foreground, the surface of the alcove is flat and dusty. There is a circle of small stones about 10 feet across marking the location of the kiva in the previous picture. The stones are to keep people from walking on the fragile roof because it is not at all obvious that there is a room under there. A small hole can be seen at the far edge of the circle of stones with two poles protruding. This is the access hole and the ladder from the previous photo.

Mikal, 7 months ago to random

I was feeling tired and it seemed like the rest of the afternoon/evening would be dull and cloudy, so I packed up, intending to start heading back. I've been on the road sleeping in my truck for a while, low on food and out of clean socks and shirts. But I thought, well, maybe there will be one last sun break for some dramatic afternoon light, so I grabbed my camera a couple of lenses and a tripod and headed back out…

Mikal, 7 months ago to roadtrip

Y'all. I have found the brain of the #ColoradoPlateau and I can conclusively state it is on LSD. Or maybe I am. This place is nuts!
#WhitePocket AZ
#RoadTrip #LandscapePhotography #Dirtbagger #DirtBaggingIt
#Geology
#ThisIsGeology #ThisIsGeologyOnDrugs

Geologic formation of light colored sandstone. These formations have split into large soft-edged blocks roughly 10 feet on a side. The cracks between the blocks are shallow and rounded by wind and rain. Each larger block has been fractured into dozens of smaller geometric shapes, the thin cracks between them are likewise rounded by wind and rain. The surface of the formation appears pillowy and vaguely brain-like, if rock formations had a brain.

Mikal, 7 months ago to Geology

Today's #CanyonCountry hike: toadstool rocks/hoodoos in the Rimrocks formation in the #Escalante area.
There are a bunch more on the other side of this ridge that I think I'm going to visit tomorrow. I love hoodoos! They are the funnest geology and are common on the #ColoradoPlateau
#Geology #Dirtbagger #DirtBaggingIt #RoadTrip

A deeply eroded cliff several hundred feet high. The lower half is red sandstone and the upper half is white sandstone. Near the skyline in the white sandstone is a large "toadstool" formation about 20 feet tall. It is a tapered column of white stone with a darker brown cap stone on top.
Unusual rock formations. The background is a high white eroded cliff beneath a dark blue sky just after sunset. In the foreground is a smaller formation with white sandstone on the bottom and a layer of red on the top. At the right edge of the red layer is a 20 foot tall hoodoo or "toadstool" formation of red sandstone with occasional white banding and a darker red sandstone cap stone on top. In all of these photos, the cap stone protects the softer sandstone underneath from rain erosion, allowing the surrounding area to right away and leaving a strange column with a wide flat rock on top. In the lower right is loose white sand with a few scattered dark green plants.