From the Island in the Sky you can look down and see both the Colorado River and the Green River in their respective canyons far, far below, in a prehistoric setting. The cliffs of Island in the Sky are 1,000ft high. Below them is an intermediate plateau that stretches out a good distance before shattering into a million fractals at another set of 1,000 foot cliffs. The cliffs have the peculiar feature of being crowned in white rock.
The white rim rock lies on top of softer shales. They erode out from underneath, forming large overhangs that eventually collapse. What's left are columns of the red rock with a protective cap of harder white rock on their tops.
I love the white rock. I knew it would be there because I’ve looked at it extensively in Google Earth and it looked just the same from a few miles away on the Island in the Sky, as it looks from space. Also visible running across that plateau is a long road that appears to encircle the entire Island district. The name of that road is the White Rim Trail, and it’s 105 miles of dirt and bedrock. The rangers say you can’t take a stock car on it. I didn’t quite believe them, but I knew the disappointing, low clearance Jeep Patriot I had rented would not be up to the task, and I really wanted to go….. so I rented a custom modified Jeep Wrangler, lifted 4 inches, for two days. It wasn't cheap either, so I had to make good use of it. That's the only time i've ever rented TWO cars at the same time. That's crazy.
The Jeep i rented to take down the road and...
The road down which i took the Jeep.
Getting down into the white rim trial I took the old Shepard's Trail. It descends spectacularly down 1,500 feet in 1.25 miles. The road had just opened after being closed for 3 days due to the snow. Some snow was still hanging on in the shaded areas and the runoff made the road very slippery in those areas. Since the whole road is on the side of a huge cliff that was a bit scary at one particular hairpin u-turn. Down below, in mid canyon I found the road to be very rough, consisting largely of exposed bedrock. Often the road was literally on the edges of huge rock cliffs, sometimes on overhangs. Those portions were definitely thrilling, but for the most part the white rock turned out to be far less fun to drive on than to walk on. It took me 4.5 hours to go 37 miles (which, compared to that stupid PAVED road to Hana is actually not so bad).
Because passing can be difficult, they generally recommend you go only one way.
The road was made even a bit narrower by a ditch along the cliffs. Hairpin turn up ahead.
One of many huge overhangs you drive on.
I decided my goal was a campground called “The White Crack”. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I had a vague, very old memory of hearing someone talk about it when i worked at the Grand Canyon. All along the road you drive by these towers of rock that are breaking off the side of the canyon. The White Crack turned out to be an area where you could walk out onto some of these free standing pillars. They were in the process of separating from the canyon rim, and to get out on them you had to hop across some narrow, deep cracks. Some of them you could see right through to the ground about 70 feet below. At some points there was open air on both sides of you only a few feet away. The view was spectacular.
In many places you can walk out on to the columns by walking over the "cracks" in between them.
It became apparent after looking around at the White Crack campground that I was on the dividing line separating the two watersheds of the Colorado River and the Green River. Just a few miles to the south the two rivers joined up, doubling the size of the Colorado. That area was hidden from view by a high mesa in front of me.
This was at the end of the White Crack, and the continuing ridge line is the divide between the watersheds of the Colorado and Green rivers. Below is a closer view of the mesa in the distance.
I made one stop on the way back at an area i had spied from up high on the Island in the Sky. There was this insanely narrow and tall spire of rock that i had seen, and i really wanted to see it up close. I caught a glimpse of it on the way over the the white crack campground, but then it was on the opposite side of a canyon from me. On the way back i made a guess about where to go when the road came close to the edge. I got out and walked out along these towers and i could see that narrow spire. I picked a nice spot, although i was still too far away. To get closer i'd have had to leave the road at another point and walk at least two miles to the edge, without knowing for sure if that area would offer an unobstructed view or not.
After climbing out onto the monuments, i could see that lone pinnacle. It's in the distant center of this picture, taken a few minutes before it's base went into the shadows. Grrr... i wanted to get closer but ran out of light.
Here you can see part of the great anticline that makes Canyonlands possible. The Grand Canyon is the result of the same type of feature, and it's what makes the horizon look tilted in this image.
Sunset came and went a little too quickly. I got a few pictures (but not enough) and began to make the long, long drive back along the very edges of all those cliffs, in the dark. It was a very tiresome, sometimes tedious task. It would have been preferable to camp and complete the road the next day. Some areas where the road crossed wide expanses of the white rock it was hard figure out if I was indeed on the road or not. I couldn’t get lost though, because in just a few seconds of heading the wrong direction my lights would disappear over the precipice, sometimes illuminating the canyon wall on the other side in narrow areas. The most scary portions of the road during the day were actually less fearsome at night due to the darkness hiding all of the scary facts. I didn’t make it off the trail until nearly 10:30 pm and then still had 40 miles of paved driving to do.
Early in the day this area reminded of 2001.
The landscape across the Green River looked interesting.
A group of bikers eating lunch on an escarpment overlooking the Colorado River.
