Despite battling uncooperative weather, I made my way to the highly-praised Harper's Corner. A friend told me that this was second only to the Grand Canyon for a view--she was right! Harpers is very similar to Toroweep on the North Rim--3800 straight down to the river. Also as at Toroweep, the photographer stands on a very precarious perch. Here is the view off one side:
That was the view of the Green River running North. If you turn around (be careful, that rock is very narrow), you see the river flowing South--with some small boats navigating it: I struggled with passing clouds, but my luck brought just enough patches of sunlight to bring out the color in the landscape.
Far below the South face of the Harper's viewpoint is a deep gorge, which shelters a paradise known as Echo Park (also called 'The Center of the Universe') The deep valley is reached by a tortuous 12-mile road:
One attraction along the road to Echo Park is a high escarpment which contains a fifty-foot long cave known as Whispering Cave:
Whispering Cave is narrow and drafty, and suffused with reflected light.
That wall which soars above Whispering Cave is typical of a series of immense cliffs that rise above--and surround--Echo Park.
However--the precious gem at the heart of Echo Park is Steamboat Rock. The explorer John Wesley Powell was almost killed attempting to climb Steamboat Rock
My guardian angels intervened at several moments, delivering breaks in the awful cloud cover just long enough to light up my subjects when I was getting desperate.
Driving North in the morning to Flaming Gorge and thre Gates of Lodore for a couple of days, then back here to explore the Yampa Bench Road, which runs for fifty miles along those high cliffs above Steamboat Rock. The locals tell me the clouds should clear.
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