A Taste of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

Thursday, April 5^th, 2018 to Monday, 9^th April; 

Cottonwood Canyon in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

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After five days of not seeing or hearing a vehicle, I left my Buckskin Mountain campsite, and slowly came down from the mountain; slowly being the operative word as that road is a desperate four miles of rocks, and ruts, and ledges and strange angles.  Three miles along the way I spotted an old quarry just off the east side of the road, or so I thought.  It turned out to be Eagle Sink, and is a natural feature, although it looks for all the world like an abandoned quarry.  I never saw it going in last Saturday, as I was concentrating on the road. “Rattlesnake heaven,” according to the lady at the BLM Office down Hwy 89 from there.  I expect they'll be out soon, as it's warming up in these parts.  Just a few miles to the east, after rejoining the highway, there's the road to Paria Township site, and also near the site of the movie set of the small town towards the end of “The Outlaw Josie Wales.”  Nothing there now, except some info signs, a loo, a picnic table, and a lot of interesting geology. 

Eagle Sink …
evidently rattlesnake heaven …
saw not a one.

On the way out from the old movie set.

Farther east over the ridge from Old Paria, is Cottonwood Wash, and yet more interesting geology, and I have a small publication all about it.  Tonight's camp is about 12 miles up the wash, next to a large slab of Jurassic Entrada Sandstone, across a small valley from several hogbacks of Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone, with the stars shining brightly.  On the way in I stopped to gather oysters for my supper, but the oyster-bed turned out to be ninety-some million years old; just a tad past their sell-by date, so I left these petrified suckers be … damn, coulda used some shellfish for me tea!

Between my Pinkie & thumb is a gap of 60 million years
in the strata; this is known as an unconformity.

Petrified Oysters.

Oyster-bed above a seam of coal (where the lower shadow is);
below that is Dakota Sandstone; this series represents a change
from river deposition to swamps, to brackish water,
where the oyster-beds are.

What left these tracks?

Oh!  You did.

Local lounge lizard …
the larger of the two types in this area.

While breakfasting the next morning, I was looking at the sloping strata of the Dakota Sandstone across the valley, and wondering if the oyster-beds were also in evidence there.  After breakfast I drove through Dakota hogbacks and took a look.  Sure enough, there were the oyster-beds at the junction of the Dakota Sandstone and the Tropic Shale (they were also found again two miles back down the road, when I went back for a look at the Geology I had passed by last evening).  Here the strata is steeply sloped to the east, whereas 9.5 miles back down the road where I first encountered them the strata was still level.  Here the rock layers have been bent over the East Kaibab Monocline along an underground fault, much as a tablecloth over the edge of a table, as the Grand Staircase Escalante to the west of this fault line has been uplifted.  Cottonwood Wash, up which I am driving, follows this fault line, and the tilted strata along here has formed a series of hogbacks through erosion, and is known as the Cockscomb for its resemblance to the serrated comb on the head of a chicken.

Entering Hackberry Canyon.

Cross-bedded Navajo Sandstone …
these are ancient dunes.

Some sort of Penstemon.

Much of the time you are walking in the stream, which on this day was half inch deep for the most part, and where slightly deeper easily stepped across.

To the east and west of Cottonwood wash the rock layers lie level, and the tilted layers along the Cockscomb are only a couple of miles or so in width.  I observed this first hand by taking a walk west through Hackberry Canyon for three miles.  At the beginning of the hike the strata is sharply tilted, but by the end of it has leveled out.  By the time I turned around where the Chinle formations were in evidence, I had walked through 60 million years of time, to when the early dinosaurs were inconsequential creatures (225 million years ago), from when they had become the large sauropods and carnivores at the beginning of my walk.  As I retraced my steps back down the canyon, I was now proceeding forwards in time, and at about the 190 million year area, I managed to find the boulder from the Moenave formation, that had some early dinosaur tracks on it.  This beastie who made these tracks was about six feet in height, so I reckon my bear spray might well stop it, should I encounter one next time I use my time machine, once it's repaired.

I brought out the colours in this one,
but with the naked eye and it fluttering along,
it looks black with yellow trimming.

About a mile into the Canyon.

The leaves within the canyon
were further along than those outside of it.

Here the Canyon widens out
at about 1½ miles in.

The lower slopes (in above photo),  are of the Chinle formation and about 60 million years older than the Navajo Sandstone at the canyon entrance.  The Red cliffs above the Chinle slopes are Jurassic Moenave and Kayenta formations, with the whiter Navajo on the skyline.  Note that by the time we reach this point in the Canyon, the strata has leveled out, indicating we have passed through the strata draped over the buried fault that lies beneath Cottonwood Canyon, that I had driven up the day before and where I am now camped.

Small dinosaur tracks in a
Monave formation boulder … my knife about 10”.

Denizen.

Sorry to have bored you silly with all the Geology, but that is much of what the Southwest is all about … you can’t ignore it.  And gaining a bit of knowledge about what I am seeing, whether geology, plants, wildlife, or the ancient ruins I encounter, all enhance these experiences.  That's why I was pleased as punch when I took what little I had learned about the first oyster bed I encountered, and idly wondered if they might be in the same situation near my campsite, and then found that they were!

About a mile to go.

Almost back out of Hackberry Canyon.

But apart from the Geology lesson, the walk through Hackberry Canyon was beautiful; splashing through the shallow streambed (managing to step over those channels that were more than an inch deep); observing my fourth wild flower in bloom this Spring (some variety of red Penstamen); noting that the new leaves on the Cottonwoods were slightly more advanced in the more sheltered, narrow depths of the Canyon, than at either end; spotting black butterflies, with yellow wing edges, that on close inspection through my binoculars, turned out to be not so much black, as a deep purple russet, and as the direction of the light on it changed, there seemed to be a pattern similar to a Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly, I was familiar with in England … but the naked eye impression is of black and yellow.  Yes … it was a good walk.  I returned to my secluded camp of the previous night, only about a half mile from the Hackberry Canyon Trailhead.

View from my campsite … hogbacks are evident.