Grand Staircase-Escalante - Toadstool Trail

Hi Blog! On Saturday, October 24, 2015, we visited Grand Staircase-Escalante - a Delaware-sized museum of sedimentary erosion that walks you down through a 200-million-year-old staircase of animals, minerals and vegetables. The Grand Staircase is an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park through Zion National Park and into the Grand Canyon. The section we are exploring is about 20 miles from our camp in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on Lake Powell. The Toadstool Trail leads up a wash to a garden of cap rock formations. Here is a really good look up the wash.

What makes the Grand Staircase worldly unique is that it preserves more Earth history than any other place on Earth. Geologists often liken the study of sedimentary rock layers to reading a history book--layer by layer, detailed chapter by detailed chapter. The problem is that in most places in the world, the book has been severely damaged by the rise and fall of mountains, the scouring of glaciers, etc. At Grand Staircase the layers remain largely intact, speaking to over 600 million years of continuous Earth history. Here's Kathy looking for the staircase.

In the 1870s, geologist Clarence Dutton first conceptualized this region as a huge stairway ascending out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon northward with the cliff edge of each layer forming giant steps. Dutton divided this layer cake of Earth history into five steps that he colorfully named Pink Cliffs, Grey Cliffs, White Cliffs, Vermilion Cliffs, and Chocolate Cliffs. Looks almost like a layer cake.

Wind and rain erode the rocks into fanciful shapes like this Egyptian sphinx.

While the sphinx is cool, we came looking for toadstools - a spire like feature with a boulder perched atop a pedestal rock, like a mushroom—they form when softer rock erodes away, leaving a column sheltered from wind and water. As we slowly meandered up the wash, climbed a dry waterfall, the big ticket payoff came into view... Toadstool Hoodoo!

After posing for a shadow photo, we walked around to get to know the other members of the Hoodoo family.

Most of the grey spires have long since lost their cap stones.

We are family....

If you look high up the cliff, a spire is just starting to take shape.

In the photo below, Kathy is just hanging with her homies. [Note: Kathy is not actually touching the rock. No criminal mischief here, unlike those Boy Scout leaders who were given probation and fines for knocking over cap rocks.] Take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints.

Now, who in their right mind would want to knock over something so cute! Just look at that face.

Just goes to show you that size doesn't matter. This little cap stone is protecting this really fat spire.

Jane, this photo is for you... crepuscular rays!

This formation definitely looks like something - what exactly, we're not sure. Any guesses?  David thinks it looks like Lamb Chop from the Shari Lewis Show.  

We had a great time letting our imagination get the better of us as we walked around the toadstool garden. We hope to spend more time in the Grand Staircase-Escalante while we are here. So, stay tuned.