Sunday we headed for Dead Horse Point and the north part of Canyonlands called the “Island in the sky”.

DEAD HORSE POINT STATE PARK towers 2, 000 feet above the Colorado River and offers a breathtaking view of Canyonlands’ buttes and sculptured pinnacles.  The story of Dead Horse Point is very sad.  According to it, the point was once used as a corral for wild mustangs.  Cowboys would round up the horses, herd them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point.  The neck, which is only 30 yards wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush, creating a natural corral surrounded by precipitous cliffs.  The cowboys would then choose the horses they wanted and leave the others to go.  One time though, by mistake, the unwanted horses were left corralled on the waterless point and they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River 2, 000 feet below.

View from Dead Horse Point

It is situated atop a high plateau at an elevation of approximately 6, 000 feet.  From the point, the view reveals layers of geologic time 300 million years old.

Potassium chloride evaporation fields in the background

The area sits on a 5, 000 to 8, 000 feet deep layer of salt (Sodium chloride) and  Potash (Potassium Chloride) from an ancient sea 3, 000 feet below the surface..  It is mined by dissolving it with water from the Colorado River and then pumping the resulting brine and piping it into shallow evaporation fields.  Colored with cobalt to accelerate evaporation, when dry, the salts are then scooped by giant scraper loaders. The Potash is then separated from the salt by flotation method.

This layer of salt is also the reason why this area does not feel earthquakes.  If they occur, the salt turns into gel and absorbs the vibrations which are not felt at the surface.

CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK

Canyonlands preserves a wilderness of rock at the heart of the Colorado Plateau.  The prime architects of this land have been water and gravity who cut into flat layers of sedimentary rock and produced hundreds of canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches and spires. Centerstage are two canyons carved by the Green and Colorado Rivers.

View of the Green river canyon from Island in the Sky

An other view from Island in the Sky

Chicken thought all of this looked like an alien landscape