The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile.
Bryce Canyon National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon, which despite its name, is not a canyon, but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by frost weathering and stream erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks. The red, orange, and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views for park visitors. Bryce Canyon National Park is much smaller and sits at a much higher elevation than nearby Zion National Park. The rim at Bryce varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet.
Dolores County is the seventh-least populous of the 64 counties of the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,326. The county seat is Dove Creek.
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.
The Dolores River is a tributary of the Colorado River, approximately 241 miles (388 km) long, in the U.S. states of Colorado and Utah. The river drains a rugged and arid region of the Colorado Plateau west of the San Juan Mountains. Its name derives from the Spanish El Rio de Nuestra Señora de Dolores, River of Our Lady of Sorrows. The river was explored and possibly named by Juan Maria Antonio Rivera during a 1765 expedition from Santa Fe.
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.
The Kaiparowits Plateau is a large, elevated landform located in southern Utah, in the southwestern United States. Along with the Grand Staircase and the Canyons of the Escalante, it makes up a significant portion of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Its extension to the southeast, Fiftymile Mountain, runs nearly to the Colorado River and Lake Powell, and is a prominent part of the northern skyline from the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
Fraxinus anomala is a species of ash tree known by the common name single-leaf ash. It is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it grows in a number of habitats including desert scrub and chaparral. It is unusual in the genus in that some specimens have simple leaves instead of the pinnate leaves more characteristic of the group.
Agoseris grandiflora is a North American species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names California dandelion, bigflower agoseris, and grassland agoseris.
Lygodesmia, called skeletonplant, is a genus of North American flowering plants in the tribe Cichorieae within the family Asteraceae.
Penstemon utahensis is a species of penstemon known by the common names Utah beardtongue and Utah penstemon. It is native to the southwestern United States, where it grows in scrub, woodland, and canyons. It is a perennial herb growing erect to a maximum height near half a meter. The thick leaves are located around the base of the plant and in opposite pairs along the stem. The upper leaves are lance-shaped and often folded lengthwise, measuring up to 5.5 centimeters long. The showy inflorescence bears many bright red-pink flowers up to 2.5 centimeters in length. They are cylindrical, tubular, or funnel-shaped with wide, lobed mouths, and mostly hairless to slightly hairy and glandular.
Carex specuicola is a rare species of sedge known by the common name Navajo sedge. It is native to a small section of the Colorado Plateau in the United States, its distribution straddling the border between Utah and Arizona, and completely within the Navajo Nation. There are several populations but they are limited to a specific type of habitat. The plants grow from the sides of steep, often vertical cliffs of red Navajo Sandstone, in areas where water trickles from the rock. It occurs at elevations between 5,700 and 6,000 feet, usually in shady spots. Though it is not a grass, the sedge grows in inconspicuous clumps resembling tufts of grass sticking out of the rock face. When the sedge was federally listed as a threatened species in 1985, it was known from only three populations in Coconino County, Arizona, with no more than 700 plants existing. The species has since been observed in northeastern Arizona and San Juan County, Utah.
Mirabilis macfarlanei is a rare species of flowering plant in the four o'clock family known by the common name MacFarlane's four o'clock. It is native to Idaho and Oregon in the United States, where it is only known from three river canyons. It faces a number of threats and is federally listed as a threatened species of the United States.
Phacelia argillacea is a rare species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common names clay phacelia and Atwood's phacelia. It is endemic to Utah in the United States, where it is known only from one canyon in Utah County. It is "one of Utah's most endangered species"; it is "one of the nation's rarest plants" and is federally listed as an endangered species of the United States.
Sclerocactus wetlandicus is a rare species of cactus known by the common name Uinta Basin hookless cactus. It is endemic to Utah in the United States, where it is known only from the Uinta Basin. It may also be called the Pariette cactus, but this name is more appropriate for Sclerocactus brevispinus, the species endemic to the Pariette Draw of Duchesne County.
Erigeron kachinensis is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names Kachina fleabane and Kachina daisy. It is native to Utah and Colorado in the United States. It is an endemic of the Colorado Plateau.
Astragalus wetherillii is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name Wetherill's milkvetch. It is native to Colorado and Utah in the United States.
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.
Linanthus watsonii is a species of flowering plant in the phlox family known by the common name Watson's prickly phlox. It is native to the western United States, where it occurs in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.
Lygodesmia grandiflora, the largeflower skeletonplant or showy rushpink, is a perennial plant in the family Asteraceae found in the Colorado Plateau and Canyonlands region of the southwestern United States.
