The Geologic Story of Canyonlands National Park — John Shaqi
The Geologic Story of Canyonlands National ParkLohman, Stanley William
Science
The Geologic Story of Canyonlands National Park
Lohman, Stanley William
Canyonlands National Park (Utah) -- Guidebooks; Geology -- Utah -- Canyonlands National Park -- Guidebooks
In August 1965, when the Park was but 11 months old, we drove the family
car over a two-track dirt “road” from Dugout Ranch to Cave
Spring—temporary headquarters for the Needles district of the park,
whose personnel were housed partly in trailers and partly in the cave.
Now a modern paved highway, built by the State (Utah Highway 11) for 19
miles to Dugout Ranch and by San Juan County, the State of Utah, and the
National Park Service for the next 18 miles, extends a total of 38 miles
from U.S. Highway 163 to a new modern campground at Squaw Flat (fig.
39). The entrance station and housing for park personnel are now in
trailers about 2 miles west of Cave Spring, but the trailers will be
replaced by permanent structures. A shallow well near temporary
headquarters supplies the only water available to the campground 1.5
miles to the west, but a new supply is to be developed for the
campground and permanent headquarters. Groceries, gasoline, trailer
hookups, and charter flights are available at Canyonlands Resort, just
outside the eastern park boundary. The old cowboy line camp at Cave
Spring has been restored so that visitors can see this phase of colorful
Canyonlands history (fig. 6). Except for 2½ miles of partly graded road
west from Squaw Flat, all travel to the west and south is by
four-wheel-drive vehicle or on foot. In order to reach the confluence of
the Green and Colorado Rivers, The Grabens, and Chesler and Virginia
Parks, drivers must conquer formidable Elephant Hill, with its 40
percent grades and backup switchbacks. SOB Hill and the Silver Stairs
also tax the skill and patience of jeepsters. Parts of this area will
eventually be reached by graded roads, possibly by about 1977, but many
hope that much of it will be kept accessible only by jeep or foot
trails.
Bates Wilson, recently retired superintendent not only of Canyonlands
National Park but also of nearby Arches National Park and of Natural
Bridges National Monument about 80 miles to the south, is one of the few
men in the park service who has guided a national park through all
phases—location, promotion, establishment, and initial development. He
retired in June 1972 to a ranch along the Colorado River north of Moab.
Unless credited to others, for which grateful acknowledgment is made,
the color photographs were taken by me. Most of these were taken on 4-
by 5-inch film in a tripod-mounted press camera using lenses of several
focal lengths, but a few were taken on 35-millimeter film. Unless
credited to others, the black and white photographs were kindly loaned
from the Moab and Arches files of the National Park Service. The points
from which most of the photographs were taken are shown in figure 19.
[Illustration: Petroglyph]
Major Powell’s River Expeditions
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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