The Southwest
Posted by Jennifer Greever on Tuesday, March 2, 2010
In 2003, about a year before I decided that teaching would be my path in life, I saved up some money, quit my then job as an environmental specialist for a consulting company and traveled out west for three months. I left Tennessee and went west through Arkansas and into the grand old southwest visiting Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada before trekking through Death Valley and into California. On my trip, I tried to go to every national park I passed and the result was a circuitous route through 13,000 miles of driving, 17 states and 23 national parks. Below are pictures from some of the parks I went through in the southwest that included, Sunset Crater NM, Chiricahua NM, Saguaro NP, Arches NP, Canyonlands NP and Grand Canyon NP.
This is a picture of the San Francisco mountain range, taken from Sunset Crater NM. In the foreground you can see the ground is black. This is an old lava deposit!! The San Francisco mountains used to be one big super volcano that blew its top a long time ago. If you look at the peaks you can imagine how they were all once different sides of the same giant mountain!
Sunset Crater is a pretty desolate place with a lot of old lava deposits, but it is beautiful and very cool all the same!
Saguaro NP. Saguaros are bat pollinated, so their flowers will open at night and die back pretty quickly once the sun comes up. You have to get up early to see them, which is not a problem because your tent is 100 degrees as soon as the Arizona sun hits it at 6:30 a.m.!!
Driving north through Arizona to reach Utah, you drive through Monument Valley. It is not hard to understand why it is called Monument Valley. This is an amazing example of what wind can do to sandstone. The monuments that are still standing are portions of the old rock layers that were harder and more resistant to weathering and so they stand as everything around them has weathered away....monuments to the power of Mother Nature.
I stayed for several days in Moab, Utah. This is where I camped, right next to the Colorado River.
Arches NP, Utah. Arches is by far one of my most favorite places in the world. These arches are formed from the weathering of wind and water, like the monuments in Monument Valley. They are even more monuments to the awesome power of Mother Nature!
Arches, NP. Yes, that is me sitting on the edge of the world.
Balance Rock, Arches NP....again, not hard to understand why it is named that.
Canyonlands NP. The desert soil in this area is extremely fragile. It is covered with what is called a cryptobiotic crust, which means a living crust. Everywhere that you walk on this cryptobiotic crust you damage and possibly kill a fragile ecosystem of microscopic organisms that are vital to the health of this desert biome! If you are ever lucky enough to go to Canyonlands or Arches NP you will notice signs everywhere that ask people to stay on the already designated trails for this reason.
Canyonlands NP, Utah.
Grand Canyon NP, north side of the park
Grand Canyon, taken from backpacking spot, standing about 40 feet from the rim of the canyon.
The southwest as you can see is quite beautiful. I would have to say that Utah is my favorite of this batch of states. It is just so big, and flat, but at the same time you feel like you are at the top of the world. The rock formations from weathering of wind and water leave wonderous remains from the beautiful and graceful arches, to large and sometimes peculiarly balanced rock monuments and deep canyons that riddle this lonesome and epic part of the country. There is definitely something to be said about riding west into the desert sunset!
This is a picture of the San Francisco mountain range, taken from Sunset Crater NM. In the foreground you can see the ground is black. This is an old lava deposit!! The San Francisco mountains used to be one big super volcano that blew its top a long time ago. If you look at the peaks you can imagine how they were all once different sides of the same giant mountain!
Sunset Crater is a pretty desolate place with a lot of old lava deposits, but it is beautiful and very cool all the same!
Saguaro NP. Saguaros are bat pollinated, so their flowers will open at night and die back pretty quickly once the sun comes up. You have to get up early to see them, which is not a problem because your tent is 100 degrees as soon as the Arizona sun hits it at 6:30 a.m.!!
Driving north through Arizona to reach Utah, you drive through Monument Valley. It is not hard to understand why it is called Monument Valley. This is an amazing example of what wind can do to sandstone. The monuments that are still standing are portions of the old rock layers that were harder and more resistant to weathering and so they stand as everything around them has weathered away....monuments to the power of Mother Nature.
I stayed for several days in Moab, Utah. This is where I camped, right next to the Colorado River.
Arches NP, Utah. Arches is by far one of my most favorite places in the world. These arches are formed from the weathering of wind and water, like the monuments in Monument Valley. They are even more monuments to the awesome power of Mother Nature!
Arches, NP. Yes, that is me sitting on the edge of the world.
Balance Rock, Arches NP....again, not hard to understand why it is named that.
Canyonlands NP. The desert soil in this area is extremely fragile. It is covered with what is called a cryptobiotic crust, which means a living crust. Everywhere that you walk on this cryptobiotic crust you damage and possibly kill a fragile ecosystem of microscopic organisms that are vital to the health of this desert biome! If you are ever lucky enough to go to Canyonlands or Arches NP you will notice signs everywhere that ask people to stay on the already designated trails for this reason.
Canyonlands NP, Utah.
Grand Canyon NP, north side of the park
Grand Canyon, taken from backpacking spot, standing about 40 feet from the rim of the canyon.
The southwest as you can see is quite beautiful. I would have to say that Utah is my favorite of this batch of states. It is just so big, and flat, but at the same time you feel like you are at the top of the world. The rock formations from weathering of wind and water leave wonderous remains from the beautiful and graceful arches, to large and sometimes peculiarly balanced rock monuments and deep canyons that riddle this lonesome and epic part of the country. There is definitely something to be said about riding west into the desert sunset!
