Canyonlands National Park is a national park of the United States located in southeastern Utah near the town of Moab. The park preserves a colorful landscape eroded into numerous canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green River, and their respective tributaries. Legislation creating the park was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 12, 1964.
The Colorado Plateau is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This plateau covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and a tiny fraction in the extreme southeast of Nevada. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
Westwater Canyon is a canyon located on the Colorado River in Eastern Utah between the Utah/Colorado state line and Cisco, Utah. The inner gorge of the canyon is made up of black Precambrian rock and contains class III and IV rapids which are sought after by whitewater enthusiasts. The most notable rapid, called "Skull", is the most significant.
The Navajo Sandstone is a geological formation in the Glen Canyon Group that is spread across the U.S. states of southern Nevada, northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, and Utah as part of the Colorado Plateau province of the United States.
The Wingate Sandstone is a geologic formation in the Glen Canyon Group of the Colorado Plateau province of the United States which crops out in northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, Nevada, and Utah.
Lomatium utriculatum is a species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by the common name common lomatium or spring gold. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California, where it grows in many types of habitat including chaparral, and in the Sierra Nevada.
Eriophyllum latilobum, the San Mateo woolly sunflower, is a perennial herb of sharply limited range, endemic and occurring only in the state of California, United States. This flowering plant of the family Asteraceae has been listed as an endangered species by the U.S. federal government as well as the state of California.
Arches National Park is a national park of the United States in eastern Utah. 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.
Lomatium parryi, commonly known as Parry's biscuitroot and Utah desertparsley, is a perennial herb in the carrot family. It is a common herb in high altitude areas of deserts and common in desert national parks, such as the mountains surrounding Death Valley, in the western part of the United States.
Lomatium congdonii, known by the common names Mariposa desertparsley and Congdon's lomatium, is a species of flowering plant in the carrot family.
Lomatium triternatum is a species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by the common name nineleaf biscuitroot. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California to Colorado, where it grows in many types of habitat. It is a hairy perennial herb growing up to a meter tall from a taproot. The leaves emerge from the lower part of the stem. Each is generally divided into three leaflets which are each subdivided into three linear leaflike segments. The inflorescence is an umbel of yellow flowers, each cluster on a ray up to 10 centimeters long, altogether forming a flat formation of umbels.
A panhole is a depression or basin eroded into flat or gently sloping cohesive rock. Similar terms for this feature are gnamma or rock holes (Australia), armchair hollows, weathering pans and solution pans.
Cedar Mesa Sandstone is a sandstone member of the Cutler Formation, found in southeast Utah, southwest Colorado, northwest New Mexico, and northeast Arizona.
Lomatium erythrocarpum, known by the common name redfruit desertparsley, is a rare species of flowering plant in the carrot family. It is endemic to Oregon in the United States, where it is limited to a section of the Blue Mountains within Baker County.
Lomatium ochocense is a rare species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by the common name Ochoco lomatium. It is endemic to Oregon, where it is limited to the Ochoco Mountains of Crook County.
Artemisia rigida is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names scabland sagebrush and stiff sagebrush. It is native to the northwestern United States, in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. It has been recorded in western Montana but these sightings may have been misidentifications.
Aliciella penstemonoides is a species of flowering plant in the phlox family known by the common names Black Canyon gilia and beardtongue gilia. It is endemic to Colorado in the United States.
Physaria tumulosa, known by the common name Kodachrome bladderpod, is a rare species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. It is endemic to Utah in the United States, where it is known only from Kane County. There is only one known population of this plant, made up of scattered occurrences totaling about 20,000 individuals, all within the Kodachrome Basin. The plant is threatened by the loss and degradation of its habitat. It is federally listed as an endangered species. It was previously treated as a subspecies of Physaria hitchcockii.
Druid Arch is an iconic 150-foot tall Cedar Mesa Sandstone arch located within the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, in San Juan County, Utah. It is situated at the head of Elephant Canyon, and precipitation runoff from Druid Arch drains north into the nearby Colorado River via Elephant Canyon. Druid Arch is one of the most popular hiking destinations in the Needles district. A 5.4 mile hike to Druid Arch starts at the Elephant Hill Trailhead, and the final quarter-mile is steep with some scrambling and one ladder. The name comes from its resemblance to the Stonehenge monument in England, which is believed to be a Druid temple. This feature's name was officially adopted in 1963 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
Angel Arch is the largest natural arch located within Canyonlands National Park, in San Juan County, Utah. Some consider it the most beautiful and spectacular arch in the park, if not the entire canyon country. It is situated in a side canyon of Salt Creek Canyon, in the Needles District of the park. Precipitation runoff from Angel Arch drains north into the nearby Colorado River via Salt Creek. A 29-mile round-trip hike to Angel Arch leads to a viewpoint, and an additional 0.75-mile trail scrambles up into the arch opening. The arch's descriptive name comes from its resemblance to an angel with wings folded, and standing with its back to the arch opening. Before this feature's name was officially adopted in 1963 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, it was called Pegasus Arch. The first ascent was made in June 1993, by John Markel and Kevin Chase.
