Through Riverless Terrain

Leaving Ely, Nevada, this morning, we headed east on US 50; our first stop was Great Basin National Park, in the Snake Range, just west of the Utah Border; details regarding the Park are provided in the linked post.  Today, a deep snow pack closed the Wheeler Peak road at Mather Overlook (just above 9000 feet) but we enjoyed broad views of the Park and adjacent landscape.  We then took a hike along South Baker Creek before setting out across the beautiful but arid lands of the Great Basin.

One of the highlights of that journey was the vast but dry bed of Sevier Lake; filled to the brim during the cool, wet climate of the Pleistocene, the lake is now a sink, fed by the fickle flow of several basin rivers that have been mostly dammed or diverted.  After crossing Interstate 15, we climbed along US 50 to merge with Interstate 70 and then crossed the massive hump of the Wasatch Plateau; beyond this high ridge the highway winds through some of the most scenic topography in North America (if not on the planet) where eroded beds of late Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks line the road.  After dropping through the Waterpocket Fold, we crossed the Green River, completing our loop through Utah, Nevada and California.

Looking down at that River, it occurred to me that this tributary of the Colorado was the first stream of any size that we had crossed since leaving Mono Lake; indeed, the West Fork of the Walker River, north of that lake was the last river that I had encountered.  Such is the nature of the Great Basin: two days of driving through magnificent but riverless terrain.

From Denver to Salt Lake

Beginning the first leg of our California road trip, we left Denver this morning, headed west on Interstate 70.  Climbing through the Front Range, we crossed the Continental Divide at the Eisenhower Tunnel and entered the vast watershed of the Colorado River.  After dipping through the Blue River Valley, we crossed Vail Pass and descended along Gore Creek and the Eagle River to the Colorado itself.

Following the Colorado, we snaked down Glenwood Canyon and, just west of Glenwood Springs, cut through the Grand Hogback, entering the Colorado Plateau, a landscape of mesas, buttes, plateaus and cliff-lined valleys.  Passing Battlement and Grand Mesas to our south and the Roan Plateau to our north, we then drove along the Book Cliffs (Cretaceous in age), that rise along the north side of the Interstate from Grand Junction to Green River, Utah.  Leaving the Colorado, we entered Utah where the La Sal Mountains, a massive laccolith near Moab, loomed to the SSW; after crossing the Green River, just east of the Waterpocket Fold, we turned north on US 6 toward Price, Utah, passing formations of Mancos Shale carved by the Price River and its tributaries.

Beyond Price, the highway climbs onto the Wasatch Plateau where, at Soldier Summit (7477 feet), we left the watershed of the Colorado River and entered the Great Basin, dropping from the Plateau and through the Wasatch Range to the urban corridor of Provo and Salt Lake City.  Tomorrow, we cross the Great Basin on Interstate 80, headed for Reno and Lake Tahoe.