04
Jun
2011
Kyle is still excited to see all kinds of awesome nature in the west coast, and this time is the continuation of his trip to Zion National Park and Antelope Canyon.
Zion National Park is famous for it’s biological diversity due to the unique geographical traits. Borrowed from Wikipedia‘s explanation,
“The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes 9 formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateaus lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.”
“Typical.”
This awesome Checkers-Board Mesa is 100% naturally made. Years of water running through and out of the rock made a structured pattern on the rock, making it look like the Checker’s Board. (Click the photos to see enlarged images)
“Although I’m almost as big as that mountain, climbing up on that might be a bit hard for me.”
“Do I look like a roaring lion?”
Kyle was also excited to see the famous animal of the canyon, a bighorn sheep. By the way, you can “adopt” a bighorn sheep – they are introduced in the canyon in 1990s. The park wants to protect them for a conservation effort. You can donate $30 that helps the research and protection of them. In return, you will get to pick up a plush of a bighorn sheep back home with you!
“Hey you, people say you are cute, but I’m cuter than you!”
“Ahm… Oops. Oh no, he’s coming towards me. NOOOO0000000ooooooo….”
Who knows what happened to Kyle. He was almost going to be eaten by them, but I hid him in my hand. He survived.
Next place Kyle wanted to go was Antelope Canyon. This is a medium size half-cave that is created due to the natural incident – flash flooding. Water from melted snow and rain on the mountain behind it flows from the top of this place especially monsoon season, and runs through like a cork screw. Again, if you would like more explanation, here it is borrowing from Wikipedia article:
“Antelope Canyon was formed by erosion of Navajo Sandstone, primarily due to flash flooding and secondarily due to other sub-aerial processes. Rainwater, especially during monsoon season, runs into the extensive basin above the slot canyon sections, picking up speed and sand as it rushes into the narrow passageways. Over time the passageways are eroded away, making the corridors deeper and smoothing hard edges in such a way as to form characteristic ‘flowing’ shapes in the rock.“
This place was a secret “spot” for many photographers to capture the unique natural beauty till a few decades ago, but once the media came and introduced the place, this place really started getting more attention.
“It’s a whole new world”
This place has guided tours, which includes transportation to the canyon and detailed explanation of each main point in the cave by the indigenous people. This is a family-owned business, and our tour guide Fernando told us that he works in Vegas usually, but he comes to help the business during weekend. Those guides grew up with this cave as a playground, and they are very knowledgeable about this place.
As you can see, the place is a bit dim. This kind of straight beams of light coming through the top of the cave can only be seen for a couple of hours of a day around noon. And it used to be very hard to capture them, if you were not a professional photographer. As digital cameras became more common, people started getting better photos to show other people and it added another reason why this place became so much popular.
Kyle was very quiet when we were visiting this place. Maybe he was too awed to talk. Once we were out of the canyon, he posed on a tumbler weed to show that he’s still the same comical origami frog.
On a tumbler weed
Thank you for reading again! Coming up next we have Las Vegas!!!!
Click to view other posts:
“Lonely Night Out”
“Wish we were on the gondola like them”
“Romantic Gondola Ride in Ceasars Palace”
“Love Me Forever”
“Hugging is worth more than a thousand words”
“Tee-hee, wish Granted”
