The history of spires in Kodachrome Basin

As I did my research on Kodachrome Basin, I wondered how these beautiful spires were created. It turns out that Kodachrome Basin was once deep underground in thousands of feet of sandstone laid down in an ancient ocean.

A volcanic hot spot beneath the site forced geysers of steam up through cracks and fissures, similar to those in Yellowstone.


When the hot spoot cooled or moved, the fissures filled with hard minerals. Then, over countless eons, the soft sandstone around them eroded away. We are left with modern works of Nature's patient art--a grand gift to the lowly photographer!


Look at the size of Chimney Rock! (above). Even the Grand Parade (below) has its own decorative spire.


Can you tell I'm enjoying myself going though thousands of images?...

Panoramas and videos...

This panorama is one I've been looking forward to assembling. It is made up of 27 shots in 8 HDRs. The first time I tried to assemble it, my big computer complained that it didn't have enough RAM. (It has 4 Gigabytes of Ram).

The open space of Upper Cathedral Valley is immense, and I hope this gives some idea of what it is like to stand there and look around. Remember to click on the image to see the larger version.

Below is a quick video of driving along the Hogback Road, which runs between Escalante and Boulder in Utah. This road passes Calf Creek (site of the famous waterfall) and then runs for thirty miles before reaching Boulder.

There is a 1,000-foot dropoff on either side of this road, so it is great fun to drive it with a video camera out the window.

The Toyota Mutiny ends...

The Toyota Mutiny ended with a whimper. The cheap floozie. She developed a complete attitude transplant--all I had to do was drive her to Vegas and run her through the deluxe car wash with wax. Hmmph.

This glass structure above is what happens when gypsum flies down from the sky. There is also a huge sinkhole in the Upper Valley where a large deposit of gypsum broke down into a superfine white powder and blew away. The hole is 200 feet deep! More about the magic of gypsum in a later post.

There are also round black boulders everywhere, blown for miles when Boulder Mountain erupted fifty million years ago.

No wonder there is a lot of mining here (wherever the !#!$!%! government doesn't ban it). The mountains are layers upon layers of minerals for miles around!
Nature also has some sense of humor in her designs. This one below sure has some resemblance to a ship cutting through the sea...


Yesterday, I visited Upper Cathedral Valley with its astonishing wealth of formations.

At the end of the day I left the park via the Lower Cathedral Valley. These two monoliths, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon, dominate a broad valley--and the glass mountain site is only a quarter-mile away.


They do make a pair! Below, the image in the foreground is the Temple of the Moon, and the Temple of the Sun is in the background. Still, as long as the Sun is out, it's hard not to take a good picture!



I just got home with 65 gigabytes of stills and videos. That will take a while to digest, but should produce some interesting panoramas. And--what was I going to do through the hot Vegas Summer, anyway?

The Toyota Mutiny...

Oh, all right--the rain last evening was good for something.

As for the Toyota, I could have sworn she screamed as I turned toward the river ford; she knew what that meant. Hours of punishment on that road. I'll give a medal l to somebody at Toyota if I can find the right person.

In any event, the sun was brilliant when we got to the massive monoliths in northern cathedral Valley. These structures stand several hundred feet in height, and nearly rival those of Monument Valley.

You can drive close to them--but then you have to back up because they overwhelm most lenses.

Cathedral valley itself is vast, and surrounded on all sides by sandstone formations.


Below, two couples were climbing to that crevice as I was shooting the scene. You can see by the size of their car that these walls lining Cathedral Valley are colossal--as is everything about Capitol Reef!

More thrills and spills tomorrow--if the Toyota puts up with it all...

Mother always said there'd be days like this...

Yesterday was a sensational day--a deep blue sky for the drive from Escalante and a perfect afternoon for an initial foray into the park. I should have known that Mother Nature was luring me in.

Filled with confidence after that afternoon, I decided to undertake the arduous 70-mile circuit up to Cathedral Valley. That was my main target when I set up the trip.

So, the Toyota and I took off for the river ford--oh, did I forget to tell you that you have to cross the river to get to the North? Must have slipped my mind.

All went well for a couple of hours. The light was brilliant at the South Cathedral Valley overlook.

Alas, then the clouds roared in, the rains came, and I drove fifty miles of rutted, bouncy, rocky, treacherously twisting roads and took nary a picture. Well, when I got back to my starting point a bit of late afternoon sun bathed the hills above the park entrance--just to mock me. Grrrrr. Note the sky in the image below compared to the one above, taken this morning.



Of course, after that unintended 'scouting mission' I know where all the Cathedral Valley formations are now, so I can just do the whole thing again tomorrow or Sunday.

Of course, when I turn the car toward the river, she is going to look at me with those big, soulful headlights and roll over dead.

Major expedition today...

Each day is more spectacular. Yesterday I drove from boulder down the Burr Trail. Every mineral color you ever wanted to see.

Then I reached the seven-mile long wonder known as Long Canyon. As you see below, you drive this winding canyon amid walls of brilliant sandstone.



Until you reach the southern exit and look out across more endless miles of beauty.


The I took the drive up into the high mountains (well, 10,000 feet) and reached the entrance of Capitol Reef. Shot a lot of material, but I'll get to it--perhaps tonuight if I'm not too wrung out from the 60-mile 4-wheel drive up to Lower Cathedral Valley. I pray the car (which ages before my eyes each day) holds up. wouldn't want to get stranded out there.

the Disgraced John Edwards used to say there were two Americas. I have discovered the second one--no Fox News, no CNBC and I have sit here in the lobby to get Internet access. Suffer, suffer...

There are two posts today...

There were so many attractions today that I had to break the blog into two posts. these early pictures are from the punishing but beautiful drive from Escalante to the famed Hole in the Rock--which I'll show in the second post below this one. The road gets worse the closer we get to the Hole in the wall. And worse.And, as we get within a few miles of the Hole in the Rock, beyond worse. All along the road, we have to the West a massive escarpment, which obviously guided the trail the Mormon wagon train followed.

Along the way, we stopped at the Devil's Garden, a huge collection of strangely-shaped sandstone monoliths, arranged as a giant child would play with blocks. Nature shows a weird sense of humor here!

Then we arrived at Dance Hall Rock--this place is huge, a monster amphitheater in which the wagon train Mormons had their Saturday night festivities. Mormons had a lot of children. I'll move on.
Throughout the punishing drive even for his 4-wheel drive,, my guide Sean showed me places where the wheels of the 1879 wagon train to the Hole in the Rock left their marks. He was also expert at finding Indian arrowheads and other small traces of Indian habitation. The picture below is of 130-year-old wagon ruts!



It was a punishing but fabulous day. Please scroll down to the next post to see the Hole in the rock itself--an astonishing story of human spirit that would not be beaten.