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Show side canyons run back into the mountains on the east and west. The terracing is more broken and disappears entirely in some sections. From the river at Hite can be seen Mount Holmes, 6.5 miles away rising 4,500 feet above the river to an elevation of 8,000 feet above sea level, and Mount Ellsworth, 9 miles away, rising 5,800 feet above the river to an elevation of 8,250 feet above sea level. From the Escalante River to below Hole in Rock the Navajo sandstone forms a ridge along the west side of the river canyon. Climbing up from the river to this ridge one finds remarkable views in all directions. The Red Rock Plateau of apparently limitless barren sandstone obscures the view of the Abajo Mountains and the country to the east. But to the north, over the deeply carved back of the Water- pocket Fold, loom the peaks of the Henry Mountains and the rim of the plateau between the Colorado and Dirty Devil Rivers almost 70 miles away. To the northwest for 50 miles stretches the Escalante Valley, walled on the southwest side by the Straight Cliffs of | rie Kaiparowits Plateau. From the base of the Straight Cliffs the desert rises gradually to the northeast to the Waterpocket Fold and the Circle Cliffs. In the long twisting gash in the bare sandstone along the southwest side of the Waterpocket Fold is the Escalante River. Beyond the upper end of the desert can be seen the high land of the Aquarius Plateau, 70 miles away. To the south the lone peak, Navajo Mountain, dominates the view. After the river winds down between the Kaiparowits Plateau and Navajo Mountain it comes out into more open country. The immediate canyon walls are lower and the land steps up gradually in great wide benches. This continues until the river reaches the Paria, Plateau and swings around the east end of the plateau in a deep narrow canyon. It is in this more open stretch of the river that Escalante1 found the Old Indian Crossing. If the Glen Canyon Dam raised the water to the elevation suggested by the Bureau of Reclamation, the widest expanses of water would be in the vicinity of the Crossing of the Fathers. Barry Goldwater of Phoenix, Ariz., stated in an article which appeared in Desert Magazine describing a trip down the 1 Silvestre Velez de Escalante ( 1768- 79), Spanish Franciscan, known chiefly as a missionary- explorer in New Mexico and adjoining regions about the beginning of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. river from Green River, Utah, to Hoover Dam: " Glen Canyon has always been synonymous in my mind with the unusual, the beautiful and the historic." OUTSTANDING AND UNIQUE SCENIC SECTIONS Within the area there are certain sections where the various types of scenery and other recreational interests reach a climax; where, after traveling for miles through this fascinating country, you come to a section that startles you by its grandeur or unusual character. Grays Pasture- J unction Butte area.- Grays Pasture is such an area. It includes all of the plateau between the Colorado and the Green Rivers, south of the Neck, a 50- foot- wide isthmus connecting Grays Pasture and the highland to the north. At the present time this is one of the most accessible sections from which to view the great panorama of the area and the canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers above their junction. Dead Horse Point on the east rim is the best known and probably one of the finest points from which to view the Colorado River winding through its amazing canyon 2,200 feet below. Upheaval Dome, on the west rim of the plateau, is the most unusual and dramatic geologic feature in southern Utah. It resembles a multicolored crater 2 males in diameter, encircled by a ridge of red sandstone. From the southwest rim of the dome one obtains impressive views of the Green River Canyon and all of the high land in every direction- the Roan Cliffs to the north, La Sal Mountains to the east, Abajo Mountains to the south, and Henry Mountains to the southwest. Elk Ridge.- On the east side of the Colorado, in the La Sal National Forest between Indian Creek on the north, and White Canyon on the south, and west of the Abajo Mountains, is a section which is certain to become nationally famous for its great variety of unusual scenic interests. Elk Ridge, running generally north and south at an average elevation of 8,500 feet, with high points at the north and south ends reaching over 9,000 feet, is the dominant topographic feature. From Elk Ridge great canyons start down toward the Colorado- White Canyon, Woodenshoe Canyon, Peavine 153 |