San Juan County is a county in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 14,518. Its county seat is Monticello, while its most populous city is Blanding. The Utah State Legislature named the county for the San Juan River, itself named by Spanish explorers.
The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail is a United States National Scenic Trail with a length measured by the Continental Divide Trail Coalition of 3,028 miles (4,873 km) between the U.S. border with Chihuahua, Mexico and the border with Alberta, Canada. Frequent route changes and a large number of alternate routes result in an actual hiking distance of 2,700 miles (4,300 km) to 3,150 miles (5,070 km). The CDT follows the Continental Divide of the Americas along the Rocky Mountains and traverses five U.S. states — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. In Montana near the Canadian border the trail crosses Triple Divide Pass.
Natural Bridges National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the Four Corners boundary of southeast Utah, in the western United States, at the junction of White Canyon and Armstrong Canyon, part of the Colorado River drainage. It features the thirteenth largest natural bridge in the world, carved from the white Permian sandstone of the Cedar Mesa Formation that gives White Canyon its name.
Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It holds 24,322,000 acre-feet (3.0001×1010 m3) of water when full, second in the United States to only Lake Mead - though Lake Mead has fallen below Lake Powell in size several times during the 21st century in terms of volume of water, depth and surface area.
The Western Slope is a colloquial term generally understood to describe the part of the state of Colorado west of the Continental Divide. Bodies of water west of the Divide flow toward the Pacific Ocean; water that falls and flows east of the Divide heads east toward the Gulf of Mexico. The Western Slope encompasses about 33% of the state, but has just 10% of the state's residents. The eastern part of the state, including the San Luis Valley and the Front Range, is the more populous portion of the state.
The San Juan River is a major tributary of the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States, providing the chief drainage for the Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona. Originating as snowmelt in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, it flows 383 miles (616 km) through the deserts of northern New Mexico and southeastern Utah to join the Colorado River at Glen Canyon.
The San Rafael Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah, United States about 16 miles (26 km) west of Green River. The San Rafael Swell, measuring approximately 75 by 40 miles, consists of a giant dome-shaped anticline of sandstone, shale, and limestone that was pushed up during the Paleocene Laramide Orogeny 60–40 million years ago. Since that time, infrequent but powerful flash floods have eroded the sedimentary rocks into numerous valleys, canyons, gorges, mesas, buttes, and badlands.
DarkSky International, formerly the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is a United States-based non-profit organization incorporated in 1988 by founders David Crawford, a professional astronomer, and Tim Hunter, a physician and amateur astronomer. The mission of DarkSky is "to preserve and protect the night time environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting."
Horseshoe Bend is a horseshoe-shaped incised meander of the Colorado River located near the town of Page, Arizona, United States. It is also referred to as the "east rim of the Grand Canyon."
Dead Horse Point State Park is a state park in San Juan County, Utah in the United States, featuring a dramatic overlook of the Colorado River and Canyonlands National Park. The park opened to the public in 1959 and covers 5,362 acres (2,170 ha) of high desert at an altitude of 5,900 feet (1,800 m).
Padre Bay is a bay within Lake Powell, on the Colorado River in Kane County and San Juan County, Utah. Its waters reach an elevation of 3,704 feet. Located 13.5 miles northeast of Glen Canyon Dam in Lake Powell, Padre Bay is the largest expanse of open water on the man made lake. Padre Bay is bounded by Alstrom Point and the island of Gunsight Butte on the west and Gooseneck Point on the east. Cookie Jar Butte lies between them on the north shore of the bay. At the southern mouth of the bay, north of Dominguez Butte on the south shore is Padres Butte, formerly an island, now with lower water in the lake the tip of Padre Point. Padres Butte marks the location of the Crossing of the Fathers, which is approximately a mile west of the butte. It currently lies under nearly four hundred feet of water.
A dark-sky preserve (DSP) is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that restricts or reduces light pollution or maintains and protects naturally dark night skies. Different terms have been used to describe these areas as national organizations and governments have worked independently to create programs. DarkSky International (DarkSky) uses "International Dark Sky Reserve" (IDSR) and "International Dark Sky Park" (IDSP) among others when certifying Dark Sky Places.
The Dinosaur Diamond is a 486-mile (782 km) scenic and historic byway loop through the dinosaur fossil laden Uinta Basin of the U.S. states of Utah and Colorado. The byway comprises the following two National Scenic Byways:
Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 mi (6 km) north of Moab, Utah. The park contains more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including the well-known Delicate Arch, which constitute the highest density of natural arches in the world. It also contains a variety of other unique geological resources and formations. The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area.
Joshua Tree National Park is an American national park in southeastern California, east of San Bernardino and Los Angeles and north of Palm Springs. It is named after the Joshua trees native to the Mojave Desert. Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Encompassing a total of 795,156 acres – slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island – the park includes 429,690 acres of designated wilderness. Straddling San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert. The Little San Bernardino Mountains traverse the southwest edge of the park.
The Honaker Trail is a hiking trail located near Goosenecks State Park in southeastern Utah. Built in the late 1890s and early 1900s as a supply route for gold prospectors, the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) trail connects the deeply entrenched San Juan River with the canyon rim over 1,200 feet (370 m) above. Popular with geologists, the trail serves as the type locality for the Pennsylvanian Honaker Trail Formation. Fossilized crinoids and brachiopods, as well as trace fossils of other organisms are visible along portions of the trail.
The Trail of the Ancients is a collection of National Scenic Byways located in the U.S. Four Corners states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. These byways comprise:
Cottonwood Canyon State Park, established in 2013, is the second largest state park in Oregon, encompassing 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) on the lower John Day River. The largest is Silver Falls State Park at 9,064 acres (3,668 ha).
The White Rim Road is a 71.2-mile-long (114.6 km) unpaved four-wheel drive road that traverses the top of the White Rim Sandstone formation below the Island in the Sky mesa of Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah in the United States. The road was constructed in the 1950s by the Atomic Energy Commission to provide access for individual prospectors intent on mining uranium deposits for use in nuclear weapons production during the Cold War. Large deposits had been found in similar areas within the region; however, the mines along the White Rim Road produced very little uranium and all the mines were abandoned.
