Roxy and I took a little trip through time yesterday - geologic time that is. Leaving the 40-60 Mya (million years ago) Claron Formation limestones of Bryce Canyon, we bobbed and weaved our way back through about 120 million years of Earth history until we arrived at our first destination in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument: Devil's Garden. The formations here - "goblins", "stone babies", and arches - are sculpted from Entrada Sandstone. These rocks date back to the Middle Jurassic and are formed from sediments laid down on beaches, tidal flats, and dunes.

From there we continued east into the monument where we drove along a section of Utah Highway 12 known as "The Hogsback". The trip seemed a little more tame this time but back in April we were heading downhill (some areas with 14% grades and very sharp curves) with a 10,000 pound (4600 kg) trailer pushing us along. This photo is from one of several pullouts along the highway looking into Calf Creek Canyon. The most abundant rock formation visible here is Navajo Sandstone and dates to the Early Jurassic (or possibly late Triassic); these rocks were formed from vast sand dunes and are about 200 million years old.

We concluded our adventure with a ride down the Burr Trail Road, the only real paved road in the monument (a travesty we must place squarely on the shoulders of some greedy elected officials in this state - and, naturally, those who elected them; I'll limit my editorializing on the subject to that). As we started down the road from the town of Boulder we first passed some domes of Navajo Sandstone about 10 miles before entering an area known as "The Gulch". Here we were surrounded by towering walls of Wingate Sandstone several hundred feet high. The Wingate is slightly older than the Navajo ("slightly" when we are talking millions of years?); it was also formed from sand dunes and is generally red to orange in color.

These types of rock are scattered all around the region and can be found in many of the parks and monuments (state and federal) of Utah. For example, many of the arches at Arches National Park are Entrada Sandstone and some of the other formations are from Wingate Sandstone; Navajo Sandstone is prominent in Zion National Park.

And here's a pic of the old rockhound herself, panting away while sitting on some 150 million year old sandstone at Devil's Garden and, possibly, wondering where all the T-Rex's are hiding (though moments later I did flush a jackrabbit that I swear was nearly as big as Roxy).