Colorado Plateau Tour

(Southern Utah, Navajo Sandstone)

October 8-15, 2023

This is a week-long tour, Sunday-Sunday. We begin at Snow Canyon just outside St. George and move east across southern Utah. Our central focus is the Navajo Sandstone, the largest collection of fossilized sand dunes in the world in any era. At the height of the “dune era” this dune field would have made the modern Sahara look small. We will examine the processes of dune formation, the evidence for local exposures of water between the towering dunes, and the evidence for living creatures among the dunes (from dinosaurs to worms).

Along the way we will investigate a variety of geologic features and processes: “inverted topography,” is a landscape created by the interaction of lava flows and erosion in sand stone country. We will look at faults and a dramatic eroded anticline. We’ll visit a couple of different dinosaur track sites.

We will enjoy the superlative food prepared by our chef, Robert Johnston, and evening conversations that are rich and wide-ranging.

Most nights we will stay in state park campgrounds that have showers.

Gerry Bryant, co-founder and science director of Talking Rocks, will be our guide.

Cost: still to be determined, but probably $1000.

As is stated elsewhere on this web site: If you have any questions, contact John McLarty. jtmclarty@gmail.com or 253-350-1211.

Death Valley Tour.

There will be no formal Death Valley tour in 2023. However, if you are interested in an informal exploration of Death Valley in late October, let me know. We may put together a small group experience.

The neighborhood of Death Valley National Park is a cornucopia of natural wonders.

Stromatolites more than a billion years old. Fish ponds surrounded by desert, ponds that are tiny remnants of immense lakes that once filled the valleys here, the fish themselves the last survivors of a once-teeming watery world. Sand dunes, deep valleys hiding lush oases.

Telescope Peak, 11,000 feet above sea level, snowy in winter, home of bristlecone pines overlooks Badwater, a brackish wet spot 282 feet below sea level where summer temperatures commonly are more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

As is stated elsewhere on this web site: If you have any questions, contact John McLarty. jtmclarty@gmail.com or 253-350-1211.