THE Trip, Canyonlands National Park, The Needles District, Hike the Pothole Point Trail

CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Sometimes a short walk/hike can be just enough.  Packed with delights and surprises and just enough exercise to stretch your legs and your imaginations.  Such was Pothole Point Trail at the Needles District of Canyonland National Park.  The trail is .6 of a mile long, there are cairns to mark the way, because much of this trail is slickrock (smooth wind-polished rock).  The area has lots of little dimples that fill with rain, potholes.  These potholes when filled with rain water quickly hatch small invertebraes.  We did see some water, we did not see any little critters living in them.

Below:  Man leads the way, cairn in lower left corner, see that sorta blackish funny looking stuff left of the cairn??  It is called cryptobiotic soil crust.    I am still reviewing my photos of it, you might want to check over at Reflection's Flora and Fauna in the future, if I find close up photos I believe display it well, I'll post them there.

There are views along the walk:

Below:   Back on the trail, abstractly beautiful, yes that is all stone, carved by Mother Nature, and catch that remnant of a Utah Juniper in the foreground, knarled and stunning, I felt like I was in an art gallery :

And a balancing act:

Below:  Another balancing act!  I am always caught asking, HOW does this happen??  You can see this boulder is taller than Man, who is almost 6 foot, and it is balanced on what??  Yepper, befuddles me!

Below:  Have I said, "it is about the color and the shapes"?  I believe I have, here we have white on top of red, swirling round and round:

Below:  Man inspecting a pothole, reports no critters seen:

A pothole with a view:

In closing, what else, but a REFLECTION.  Gotta have reflections here ON Reflections, right??  For sure!   Below, a pothole reflecting the sun and the clouds above, how cool, err, cloudy, is that reflection??

* We visited and hiked the Pothole Point Trail, Canyonlands National Park, The Needles District on April 30, 2011.  Yes, that is Man's winter coat, and yes, it felt really really good to have warm clothes on that late in the year, noting that the elevation here at Pothole Point Trail was somewhere around 5,080 feet.
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