We were hanging out, forty to fifty miles from anywhere, UT, with zero bars on the phone. It was the middle-of-nowhere and it felt like it. Then Dale suggested that we take a ride up to the top of the plateau to an old stomping ground of his to look for petrified wood.
There was a picture of it somewhere but it isn’t turning up right now. Did you see our last post? Take that road and add a day of rain / snow prior. Do you know why they call some of the surfaces in Utah ‘Slick Rock’? We do now!
A long, slow, tail sliding toward the edge ride up, up, up to the top where the temps went from 54 to 37 and we were there. Dale did a great job of navigating the road and we did a great job of closing our eyes at all the right times.
He wasn’t kidding about the area. Petrified wood everywhere! We had an amazing time exploring and picking out a few treasures to remember the day by. Here’s a few shots…
We’ll start off with some shots of petrified wood. For those who haven’t seen it before, often when it breaks it winds up looking just like a pretty piece of rock. In this particular location, we managed to see several tree stumps or trunk portions which were a bit easier to identify due to obvious bark, rings, knot holes, etc.
There was petrified wood everywhere! Every shape, size, color and consistency you could think of. Each time we thought we had seen something amazing, Dale would call to us that we just had to see what he had found around the bend.
Colorful fragments and and entire section of fully crystallized pieces. We would have been content to just hang out and marvel in these sections. And then we heard it… only it was louder and with more emphasis this time… “Hey, girls! You’re going to want to come over here!” When we got there, Dale was way up on the hill so we started up…
Does he look proud, or what?!
We were all pretty excited as this is not something you see every day in an unprotected/natural state. So, we took turns posing with hands on for perspective.
It was a great day followed by more great days exploring the area, taking yet another drive down a cliffhanging road (this time to search for turquoise – a search which ended at Lake Powell instead), some dry wash walking and even a little resting and relaxing here or there. The rest of the photos follow.
Load-stone (geodes) we found… outside and inside (after we cut them open)
Our ride and our single lane… very long, windy, up / down road to the lake.
Bloomin’ Cactus!
Better get this uploaded. It’s going to take a while.
As always… to be continued.