San Juan River: rock-lover's delight

The rocks all over this part of the world are simply amazing. I'll be showing and telling you later about some of the great geological wonders we saw off the river, but today's fabulous rocks we saw either from our boats or on hikes taken during our river excursion.

The beauty above (probably 20 feet high, at least) was an erratic just sitting there posing for us on the trail between the River House Ruin and Comb Ridge, not 15 minutes from our first campsite. I wouldn't like to have been anywhere in the area when it broke off from the cliff in the picture below...it would have made quite an impression!

This parent outcropping is probably 100+ feet high. The Ruin itself (stayed tuned for a future post about all the archaeological treasures along this river) is just around the corner to the right:

Some of our best rock-spotting happened on our hike up Chinle Creek, where our 2nd and 3rd night campsite was. The plan was to cross the creek and see some of the Mesa-Verde-like ruins on the other side, but just as the River was really rushing, so too was this main tributary creek, and there was no place to cross.

The hike was still fun, though, and the natural architecture was as wonderful as the archaeology (which we could see across the way very nicely through our binoculars).

a long-dislodged boulder left a striking slot in this cliff

Sedimentology 101...closeup of rocks along the trail

The shot below looks like I loaded it upside down, but I'm not that absent-minded yet. I took it just looking straight up from our nicely shaded lunch spot at the base of a gorgeous cliff. The color contrast between the rocks and the sky was even more marvelous than it looks in the pictures. I just couldn't keep from being entranced by it.

Another amazing hunk of rock was right in front of us at our lunch spot:

Michael called my attention to its artistic-looking quality. Doesn't it look like the work of a master abstract sculptor? Here's a shot that shows you how it was "mounted" in this "gallery":

That striking formation in the distance is Mule Ear, and one of the blobs of rock around it is the Mule Ear Diatreme, which Henry tried, several times and not too successfully, I'm afraid, to point out to us. Here's a closer shot; there was much discussion as to whether the diatreme is the rock in front or off to the right from the distinctive "ear." A rose by any other name, etc., etc. It was great scenery regardless.

The River winds its way through more and more amazing rock scenery as the trip progresses. (If you want to see it really winding, take a look at this video of the Goosenecks, a downstream section of the River we didn't paddle this time but were able to see from above. More about this stupendous scenery later.)

a great wall seen our first day

looking back upstream at 8-Foot-Rapid...note tiny boats beached on the right

more canyon scenery

This particular feature is a "perched meander." A tight winding in the ancient San Juan (like the Goosenecks, which are entrenched meanders) eventually got to be too much work for the water and it found a straighter, easier path, which left the old meander high and dry...

distinctive formations near the end of the trip

But the most striking, and most welcome, rock feature we saw was the little guy in the photo below. We knew he was telling us that our take-out was very near, since he's Mexican Hat Rock and we were taking out at Mexican Hat, Utah.

Yep, it's not too long between this...

... and this...

sundae at the Olde Bridge Grille

Yes, ice cream came even before a shower and much-needed hair-washing. As you can tell. Fortunately the grille at the bridge (handily adjacent to the San Juan Inn, where we had a reservation for the night) is only too happy to provide treats like this to hungry, thirsty paddlers.

Although we really had no reason to be hungry. In the next post, I'll show you some of the scrumptious meals we had on the river, as well as other shots of campsite life.