Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Canyon Next Door





 I did this little 5 miler on Saturday morning (12/7/2019). Since I now know it to be on State Parks, BLM and State trust lands, I decided to have look at the canyon next door (on the south) to the very well known and well traveled Slot Canyon. The scenery, cuestas and cliffs of conglomerates and layered basalt and banded rhyolite, was nice, but not spectacular. I  then moved on to the next canyon to the south. Scenery there wasn't much, so climbed up to the mesa in between and began working my way over hills and ridges back to the arroyo which contains the Slot Canyon. I had a look at the Slot Canyon from above, but didn't go in. I'm still  wondering if this narrow little wonder was created if and when the arroyo was dammed by humans and the storm flow found passage through the easily eroded conglomerate it's carved in, or, if the arroyo, either through a flood event or a build-up of sediments over time,  dammed itself and naturally changed course and began working its way more directly to the Rio Grande.
 NOTE: at the start of this hike I hacked off another bogus NO TRESPASSING sign from the gate.

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